Dreams

My wife stops trying to massage the stiff tendons of my neck. She kisses the back of my head, falling asleep seconds later.

My guts feel like a churning barrel of rocks. I can’t work anymore tonight; I punch out. I lay down, toss and turn a bit, and out of love, I leave the bed to my wife and go back to the computer, surfing aimlessly on Facebook.

I find a link about whether you know they’re the one. It’s kind of a funny article; I love my wife, and it’s fun seeing how we stack up. I read, “They make you feel safe.”

Yes, she does make me feel safe, but then I think about when I felt the safest in the world: being 6 years old and hanging out with Grandma.

This was back when Grandma still lived in her house. The living room was maybe 100 square feet with a TV. Not claustrophobic, but cozy, because she would smile and tell me “Good job!” after drawing a “rainbow of horses.” There’s a red horizontal stick with four vertical lines splatting every direction towards the horizontal green grass; there’s an orange one. When I was last there, a horse-centipede monstrosity was still hanging on the fridge, next to some of the acrylic work I did for fun in high school and little pages of scribbles painstakingly dated and labeled “dog” “monster” “Dad.”

I wish I had mustered the energy to give her a second copy of what would be my magnum-opus in art. It wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t going to be my best… so I’d thought. It won an honorable mention at the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards competition, a national competition, and I was sure that I would be on my path to bigger and better things. But life slaps you in the face, reality hits like a brick, and you realize that art isn’t exactly a stable career.

My dad was an accountant; I’m an accountant. Probably never would’ve been an accountant without his influence.

My dad grew up without a dad. Grandpa was long gone before anyone but grandma ever saw him. Grandma was only 22 with no job and a family that wanted nothing to do with my dad. So it was just the two of them. Dad didn’t grow up with much. Even decades later, recollections creates angry shimmers of barely held tears. “I had to work to get to where I am today,” he says proudly.

His life was much harder than mine. I’m grateful his sacrifices have made mine easier.

Highschool was no easy time for either of us. I told everyone that I would be an artist, either for graphic design or God forbid drawing furry porn for a living. Dad never liked that. He refused to come to my art fairs. He only went “Hmmm” once he heard I won a national award for my art. And finally, he told me that I was on my own for college if I didn’t pick something more practical.

“It’s hard to raise a family on an artist’s salary,” he said.

I researched as best I could for what kind of jobs I could do. Quite frankly, the only thing that seemed to guarantee an income was drawing home appliances getting it on. I settled on art as a hobby of mine, and now I’m an accountant with a mortgage, a car payment, and a wife who just had a very expensive C-section.

I haven’t even put a pencil to paper for a graphite drawing in… 6 years? It never felt fast until I looked back and realized that the kid I was back then is a completely different person from who I am now. I’m so incredibly grateful that I have a healthy family and a stable job. But I also feel bad for that kid I left behind. He was really incredible, daring to dream that big. Making a living as an artist? That needs guts. He was burning fast and burning bright; he probably would’ve run out of steam, and I guess I’m thankful that dad threw cold water on that idea. I haven’t made anything in 6 years. Imagine if I had gone to art school, learned stuff, then learned that all my skills would never be used again. That would’ve been even more heartbreaking.

I head in to work a few minutes early. At about 10 AM, I get a call from my mom.

“You know, I’ve been going through Dad’s stuff, and I found a large envelope for you.”

“For me? Weird. Well, just send it in the mail, I guess.”

“Sure thing. Love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

We just barely scraped by last month, and with breastfeeding, diapers, and God knows what else we need, it just hasn’t been working. We only made the minimum payment on the car.

“Babe, there’s a manila envelope for you here. Says it’s from your mom.”

I swipe it off the counter and hide myself in the study. I pry off the tape and dump out its contents.

Out comes my little black book bound with a rubber band, followed by a rash of tiny pages with little drawings. The notebook is hefty for losing most of its pages.

There’s a piece of paper stuck in the envelope. Looks like a note. A note from Grandma.

“I know things have been hard with your dad. He’s been worried about you; he calls me every week to talk about you. He’s worried that you’ll grow up poor if you study art in college.”

“I don’t blame him for being worried about you. All parents worry. But as someone who is not your dad, what worries me the most is what will make you happy.”

“I’ve seen your art. Your dad showed me what you submitted for that national competition too. Not everyone is a starving artist, and with your talent, I think you could make it. I hope this helps.”

There’s not anything else in the envelope. There must be cash stuffed in the pages.

And boy, was there cash stuck in these pages… Hundreds of hundreds, totaling $20,000. Money for the car, the hospital bill, the mortgage, hell even some allowance on groceries for a while.

I cried.