Cousin Johnny

Handling a tragedy is never easy as a young child, for me it made me realize that everything would not always be wonderful and happy. Revealing, that “The power of imagination,” is not always that powerful. The made up world of a child’s mind is simply circled around blissful thinking. Being so young, children just assume that the real world is the same as their own, and nothing bad can come across their path. When it comes time for a child to actually experience a tragic incident for the first time, they are stunned, as they try to piece together what is going on around them.

The young child I was, being only seven years old, I paid no attention to the real world and it’s troubles, because my imagination kept me preoccupied, and happy. In my imaginary world; only old people passed on, diseases were unheard of, men never cried, and all girls grew up to be princesses. These were my ideal thoughts of a truthful world, and of course every adult would play along with this fantasy in order to maintain the “Innocence of a child.”

There was no way for the real world to be any different from mine. I used to always go outside to play hide and seek with my imaginary friends, and run around the yard with my teddy bears to become a super hero that fought off evil ghost from my home. Then that faithful day came, as I was getting ready to crown myself princess of the house, mother called me into the kitchen.

I remember it like yesterday, her fingers were nervously knotted, and the lump of words stuck in her throat visible fighting to force that specific sentence out.

“Jasmin, one of your relatives have past,” Mother said with a straight face, doing her best to withhold her emotions.

My very first thought was, “It was one of the elders, they lived a long, healthy life, and now they go to heaven, nothing to be sad about.”

My mother then finished her sentence with...

“It was your younger cousin, Jonathan.”

In that moment I remember my world shutting down, it all began to dissolve as I struggled to maintain the memory of my imaginary friends, and had to force myself continually to see my teddy bears as sidekicks, and not just pieces of fake fur stuffed with cotton. This new, unheard of, ideal thought was foreign to my ears, as it sent me into a culture shock.

My whole world of childhood was being corrupted as this new thought had entered my brain, causing complete chaos. Johnny was not even twenty four yet, he was not old, and there was still plenty of time left to hang out with him. None of it made sense as to how my cousin could be gone. Confusion continued sweeping in, as I tried to comprehend the conversations of other people attending the funeral. They would go on to say how he died of a heart attack, but that would only break me down, and rebuke the truth.

Unfortunately, this new reality was impossible to ignore as the evidence kept revealing itself unto me. I remember attending my cousin’s funeral at my childhood church, and saw everyone walk up to him. The women would kiss his cheek, and fall to the floor crying out, “He's so cold, GOD why?!”

That small, historical, church, quickly filled with people coming to say goodbye. Not even five minutes would pass before it was difficult to seat everyone, causing a good majority of attendance to stand outside in the rain. Though, in that moment no one was worried about getting wet. Everything I perceived the real world to be had confessed itself a lie; my father was crying, my young cousin was being buried, and older people were the ones to bury him! The false ideologies taught to me as a child were all lies! That realization set in, as I had to watch a loved one, who was still suppose to be here with me, be sent to heaven before his time.

Witnessing such a tragedy in my family made me realize that the truth of a child is just a lie as an adult. Time went on, and I felt my childhood slipping away from me earlier then it should have. I stopped baking cookies with my mother because Santa Clause was never coming the night before Christmas, Easter egg hunts done away with, because the holiday was actually celebrated for another reason, and wearing Halloween costumes became... stupid. My childhood was dead to me, as I wanted to know just how cruel life could really be, and what else had the adults had been lying about.

I would have loved to stay in my perception of life, and believe that the real world was just like mine, but it was not. Now that I am older I am able to see this place for what it really is, and witness why adults play along in the fantasy of a child’s imagination. The "innocence of a child" is maintained by blissful ignorance, because a young mind cannot comprehend the cruelty of the real world around them.