Annie was Travis’s favorite thing. Especially the song, Tomorrow. The cast recording we have on vinyl is worn down from being listened to so many times, the voices far away and static-y.
Travis died when I was eight-months old. He was still a baby himself, only two. I don’t really remember him. I’ve got no clear memories of his face or his feet (which I reportedly loved to play with while he sat on the couch). But there are feelings I have around certain things, echoes of memories of you will. Like how angry Annie used to make me.
It was going to be on TV once when I was quite little, maybe four. Mom was excited, “Oh Sunshine! Annie’s going to be on TV! Don’t you want to watch Annie?!”
And my rage was like the fire of 1000 suns. It rose up in me, this searing hate and revulsion for that stupid girl and her ugly red afro, the mean woman, the scary bald man. I’m pretty sure I threw a fit on the floor of Mamaw’s living room. Floating in my memory, Mom’s stricken face retreating into the back of the house.
Mom was a romantic. There were doubtlessly visions of us curled up on the couch together, the way that she and Travis used to. Maybe we would have a good, cleansing cry afterwards. Soothed by the idea that the sun would come out tomorrow, that everything would turn out not just fine, but great.
I’ve felt guilty over that memory for years.
Mom told me once, years later when I was an adult, that after he died I was her reason for getting up in the morning. It’s a strange thing, your number one job being to simply exist. That the best thing you can do for someone you love is poop your pants. There’s got to be something Buddhist in that.
Mom died when I was 31. When we knew it was coming, we made sure we said all the things we needed to say to each other. It was really beautiful. Apologies for past crimes and transgressions. Expressing the love that we always meant to express but hadn’t the courage to do before. While I apologized for the many times I hurt her (always innumerable with those we love) we never talked about Annie. I never even thought about it. Perhaps it was buried too deep, something I wanted to forget about, when I made Mom sad and failed in my duty to take care of her.
Because as a child, while I didn’t know (in so many words) that I was the Reason for Getting Up in the Morning, I knew my parents needed me to take care of them after Travis died. It’s apparently a Thing people say to the surviving siblings, that they need to take care of their parents. It was something I took, and still take, very seriously.
I would hide from them, Mom and Dad and Sister, all the anger and sadness and bad feelings. I was supposed to be Joy and Sunshine and the Reason. As such, I could not be angry or sad - remember what happened when Mom wanted to watch Annie and I most certainly did not? (I think I’m also rather distrustful of feelings, they can be so misleading and messy.) When Mamaw died, I allowed myself a good cry while I was alone (I was home alone that day) and when everyone got back, when we stood in a family hug in the upstairs hallway, they cried and I did not. Because I felt they needed me to be strong.
Like many ill-conceived if well-intentioned ideas we have as children, this one did not work out the way I wanted or expected it to. My family, like most people who’ve loved and cared for me I fear, feel cut off from me. Words like 'secretive' and 'aloof' are used about me. When I feel threatened or scared, I hide away, like a cat. And I’ve grown into an adult that struggles to connect to people, in part because I don’t understand what they actually want to know about me. (Note: My struggle to connect with people is a rich and multifaceted topic.)
Growing up is a process of a squishy brain slowly solidifying. Right after college, the pain of losing Travis, while not slackened, was at least was something my brain was solid enough to understand. Sister and I went to see a revival of Annie when she received the tickets as a gift. I had accepted the invitation to go with trepidation, joking about how angry the movie used to make me, trying to relieve the pressure. I was nervous, sitting in that dark theater, worried how, if, I would make it through.
The show started. And I started to cry.
I cried and cried through the whole damn thing. Sister joined me. Though she was born after Travis died, she knew what Annie meant. We were probably the only two people in the theater sobbing our way through what the poster promised was the “Happiest Musical in the World!”
It was cathartic and healing and we made more jokes about it (my family always makes jokes about hard things). I’m not saying it cured me. As above, I never talked to Mom about it, even though I had the better part of a decade to do so between the theater trip and her passing. I still don’t listen to the music if I can help it. I didn’t go see the new movie ten years ago. But at least I’m not smashing innocent music boxes in souvenir shops or screaming at those I love about it.
But perhaps someday, I’ll be strong enough to watch the movie, Travis’s favorite movie. I’ll slink off like a cat and watch it alone. Think about him, think about Mom. Have my little cry, pick myself up. The sun’ll come out and I’ll move forward. Totally cured this time. Yes indeed.
Travis died when I was eight-months old. He was still a baby himself, only two. I don’t really remember him. I’ve got no clear memories of his face or his feet (which I reportedly loved to play with while he sat on the couch). But there are feelings I have around certain things, echoes of memories of you will. Like how angry Annie used to make me.
It was going to be on TV once when I was quite little, maybe four. Mom was excited, “Oh Sunshine! Annie’s going to be on TV! Don’t you want to watch Annie?!”
And my rage was like the fire of 1000 suns. It rose up in me, this searing hate and revulsion for that stupid girl and her ugly red afro, the mean woman, the scary bald man. I’m pretty sure I threw a fit on the floor of Mamaw’s living room. Floating in my memory, Mom’s stricken face retreating into the back of the house.
Mom was a romantic. There were doubtlessly visions of us curled up on the couch together, the way that she and Travis used to. Maybe we would have a good, cleansing cry afterwards. Soothed by the idea that the sun would come out tomorrow, that everything would turn out not just fine, but great.
I’ve felt guilty over that memory for years.
Mom told me once, years later when I was an adult, that after he died I was her reason for getting up in the morning. It’s a strange thing, your number one job being to simply exist. That the best thing you can do for someone you love is poop your pants. There’s got to be something Buddhist in that.
Mom died when I was 31. When we knew it was coming, we made sure we said all the things we needed to say to each other. It was really beautiful. Apologies for past crimes and transgressions. Expressing the love that we always meant to express but hadn’t the courage to do before. While I apologized for the many times I hurt her (always innumerable with those we love) we never talked about Annie. I never even thought about it. Perhaps it was buried too deep, something I wanted to forget about, when I made Mom sad and failed in my duty to take care of her.
Because as a child, while I didn’t know (in so many words) that I was the Reason for Getting Up in the Morning, I knew my parents needed me to take care of them after Travis died. It’s apparently a Thing people say to the surviving siblings, that they need to take care of their parents. It was something I took, and still take, very seriously.
I would hide from them, Mom and Dad and Sister, all the anger and sadness and bad feelings. I was supposed to be Joy and Sunshine and the Reason. As such, I could not be angry or sad - remember what happened when Mom wanted to watch Annie and I most certainly did not? (I think I’m also rather distrustful of feelings, they can be so misleading and messy.) When Mamaw died, I allowed myself a good cry while I was alone (I was home alone that day) and when everyone got back, when we stood in a family hug in the upstairs hallway, they cried and I did not. Because I felt they needed me to be strong.
Like many ill-conceived if well-intentioned ideas we have as children, this one did not work out the way I wanted or expected it to. My family, like most people who’ve loved and cared for me I fear, feel cut off from me. Words like 'secretive' and 'aloof' are used about me. When I feel threatened or scared, I hide away, like a cat. And I’ve grown into an adult that struggles to connect to people, in part because I don’t understand what they actually want to know about me. (Note: My struggle to connect with people is a rich and multifaceted topic.)
Growing up is a process of a squishy brain slowly solidifying. Right after college, the pain of losing Travis, while not slackened, was at least was something my brain was solid enough to understand. Sister and I went to see a revival of Annie when she received the tickets as a gift. I had accepted the invitation to go with trepidation, joking about how angry the movie used to make me, trying to relieve the pressure. I was nervous, sitting in that dark theater, worried how, if, I would make it through.
The show started. And I started to cry.
I cried and cried through the whole damn thing. Sister joined me. Though she was born after Travis died, she knew what Annie meant. We were probably the only two people in the theater sobbing our way through what the poster promised was the “Happiest Musical in the World!”
It was cathartic and healing and we made more jokes about it (my family always makes jokes about hard things). I’m not saying it cured me. As above, I never talked to Mom about it, even though I had the better part of a decade to do so between the theater trip and her passing. I still don’t listen to the music if I can help it. I didn’t go see the new movie ten years ago. But at least I’m not smashing innocent music boxes in souvenir shops or screaming at those I love about it.
But perhaps someday, I’ll be strong enough to watch the movie, Travis’s favorite movie. I’ll slink off like a cat and watch it alone. Think about him, think about Mom. Have my little cry, pick myself up. The sun’ll come out and I’ll move forward. Totally cured this time. Yes indeed.
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