Final Blastoff

The 4th of July by Harold Davis

The day before Fourth of July 2010, my now ex-husband flickered around like a moth in a pageant of holiday lights. Impulsively, he corralled my then 17-year-old son and his best friend, Robert, and they jumped in his vehicle and rocketed away as if running from a disturbed hive of hornets and disappeared.

It was a spur of the moment decision. They traveled some 300 miles to another state to purchase legal fireworks, but illegal in our state, and they would motor them back to fire up at our house for the holiday.

I was all for it. My ex had spent the earlier part of the year in a dark depression and to witness signs of rebirth in him was like drinking a glass of sweet tea on a particularly hot day in Austin, Texas, where I attended college many moons ago.

When my ex and the young men returned with the booty many hours later, I discovered my ex had spent some $800 on fireworks. For nearly every previous Fourth of July, we “had a blast” in our backyard with legal, inexpensive fireworks intended for simple family play. I knew this fact, but I retrieved my rose-colored glasses, secured them perfectly over my eyes and did not argue. Instead, I shelved the fact that we were having difficulty meeting our monthly mortgage payment, never mind spending an insane amount of money on a frivolous, last-minute action.

I was determined to believe: we would meet our debt, and the daily stress would alleviate. We were taking the bumpy, longer-than-planned route, but we would arrive at our happily-ever-after destination and nothing was going to disintegrate The Maxwell House, as I first dubbed our happy home in 2002.

What I didn’t see was the separate household, some 600 miles away, that my then husband had begun to set up. What I didn’t see was his relocation to his new home in November 2010. What I didn’t see was 18-year-old Robert’s accidental death in January 2011, shortly after our marriage ended. And, I certainly didn’t envision, in a trillion years, my son’s premeditated death in November 2019.

All I saw was the solid black canvas screen that projected the light show on that last Fourth our family, including my daughter and the children’s godmother, would spend together. In the backyard, my now ex-husband launched dozens of bottle rockets, among his arsenals, into the sky as if he were a comic character set free from the confines of a book. The two teenage boys followed behind, laughing, mimicking his frantic movements. From the deck above, the rest of us screamed in delight, flashing smiles almost as big as the dazzling, sizzling and soaring fireworks. It was a night to remember and behind my rose-colored glasses I wore that night, no one could convince me that we would not experience decades of forthcoming holidays like boxes of traditional firecrackers strung together.

The illegal fireworks that my now ex bought to celebrate July 2010 accompanied us through 2017, which was the final Fourth I spent with the children’s godmother and my son, who had inherited the responsibility of launching the fireworks since the dissolution of our family unit. (My daughter was working as a summer camp counselor in Upstate New York.) Sadly, I remember on our final blastoff together, I felt irritated and bored, impatient between launches; thinking of all the projects and ruminating over an endless task list in my mind. And then it was as if “POOF” he was gone. First, he relocated to Kentucky, some 600 miles away. And then two years after the relocation, he disappeared entirely like stars and roman candles that fizzle out and leave behind a black tar hue that blinds your world without any sign of light or an escape door.

Fourth of July was my son’s best friend’s favorite holiday. It was my son’s second favorite holiday, after Halloween.

I’ve heard that many mourning mothers memorialize their dead children all over their homes with photos and other reminders of holidays and good times past. After the funeral at the end of 2019, the children’s photos remained where they had always been. The new addition in the entrance hallway, above a set of stairs leading to the front door, was an 8.5 inch by 10 inch framed photo of my son that was signed by his co-workers in Kentucky and delivered to the funeral home as a thoughtful gift.

By mid-March of the following year, I started getting woozy from the grief build up of viewing him in the photos at different stages in his life, and having him stare intensely at me from that enlarged photo at the entrance hall day in and day out as if pleading to me, “You saved the world. Why did you not save me?”

Feeling the blood on my hands, the maggot-like raw reality of the tragic situation ate me up. I would never see his white toothy smile. Hear his irritating giggle, reminiscent of mine. Or smell his familiar Irish Spring soap scent in real life. He filled every part – big, small, significant and insignificant – of my day in, day out life, and then “POOF” he was gone.

And so it was, I silenced all the expert opinions and advice and in stillness boxed up every single photo and reminder of him, only to deposit the painful treasures safely out of sight. Fortunately, my therapist stood by my decision. Afterwards, my angst, miraculously, subsided. The blank wall where the signed photograph resided bothered me though. The blankness seemed to grow emptier. I didn’t have a clue what I could display there.

The following month, I attended an art show, my artist friend’s exhibition. Harold is a gifted man, and I am truly humbled every time I view his creations. Since my new normal, I allow a handful of people into my life, Harold and his wife Chris have been two of them. We share on a gut level that never fails to fill my spirit with faith.

Anyway, after the show ended and I was headed towards my automobile on that beautiful spring day, Harold stopped me.

“I have something for you.”

“What?” I responded, surprised.

He summoned me to follow him to his vehicle and I did. It was then that he presented me with a vibrant-colored abstract painting of his.

“I wanted you to have this.”

As I stared at it, mesmerized by the boldness, I turned it over, only to find its title, “Fourth of July.”

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After thanking the artist, I responded, misty eyed, “I have a blank wall that’s been waiting for this.”

Harold’s painting looks larger than life on my previously blank wall ever since. It isn’t a photo of my son. It is a piece of art that I see, perhaps, 20, 30 or more times a day. The bright colors fill my my mind’s dark horizon like fireworks blasting in the sky. The image fills me with an abundance of Fourth of July memories that I once was so grateful to share with my now sizzled out young family. The image energizes me and ignites my soul ablaze.

I also feel like the painting represents an eternal flame that fans my faith and courage, so I manage to accomplish the daily climb up and climb down on the stairs of a house once built on petals of love as sweet as the scent of roses.

Faith Muscle