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Seventh College, Political Science
Flash Non Fiction
Red Envelope
My granny's home was a place of wonders as a child. Scattered throughout those humble rooms were splashes of finery and magic things, heavily patrolled by her watchful eye. There was a large glass case full of mysteries for others, but treasures to her, sealed to the world and safe from my curiosity. Cornered in the dining room, a marble horse reared its head, never to be played around, more fit for a mansion, yet expected of her flair. In my young mind the most interesting of all resided at the end of a long wallpapered hallway, above her busy front door that opened and closed with laughs and hoots. There, sat a crimson red envelope perched upon the frame. The corners bulged as if its contents were not meant for the vessel and it was kept barely sealed by a half inch piece of tape.
The envelope watched and it mocked as it was keen to its latency and far from my reach. Between sips of black morning coffee she’d quell my pestering, retorting sweetly that I’d open it when I’m older. But older always eluded me and the gambit was clear. She’d meet my revelation with her sly smile & clever redirection.
Her passing came unexpectedly. A soul so large and resilient we thought it forever rooted in this world, steadfast in our lives, impossible to move, but she did like all the rest. I was there when she left us. I was there when they took her away. I was at the hospital where resources were exhausted and I was there as a son searched after the strength for a final goodbye. The red letter watched patiently as our depleted family came falling through its door, unprepared and reluctant of the new world awaiting them.
Where one was lost many came, as her home exploded with faces from further places than I’d known, crying and laughing and arguing in their passionate remembrance. The echoes of a family in mourning. I sat and listened to their stories through thick accents and howls from across the room. Their southern words and candied voices fell gently on my ears, as they sang the song of a brown skinned girl from Mississsipi. They spoke of her voice and her confidence, of her cooking and her independence. Of her great migration to Watts and how the grass isn't greener. They talked of fights and of tenderness. Of prejudice and heroism, like a reward received from the mayor when her long city bus helped evacuate a stadium in the 89” earthquake. Weaved throughout their roars on her ability to conjure a meal from nothing and how she'd yell in the third person when you got on her bad side, were the intimacies a grandchild misses. A myriad of familiarity and nuance, collectively bundled as a bouquet to be admired.
Their words hung thick in the air, memories brought to life by breath, untold stories mixed with the classics, filling a reservoir that had recently been sapped. Colors I’d forgotten began to be restored, as the light of her life shined through those who knew her best. I absorbed all I could before our family dispersed and my immediate remained. The mending had begun, a few pieces replaced by ethereal substitutes, love manifesting, dreams of before. But as the door shut behind them a touch of scarlet was missing, that envelope was gone. Maybe it’d been open, perhaps it was she, forever with her, forever with me.
The Red Envelope is a flash nonfiction piece about my grandmother's home, her sudden passing, and the reunion of family that followed. It represents the theme of resilience beyond my own experience with loss and mourning, by reflecting on my grandmother's life and our family history. I took a flash nonfiction class in one of my first semesters back in school at a community college in Portland, Oregon, and fell in love with the format, especially as a means for engaging with loss and trauma through a creative avenue. For me, flash narrows the scope enough to make memories with such monumental emotions a bit more malleable, by asking that they be condensed, but fully expressed in just a few sentences. I've also found it interesting in flash writing to attach the narrative to an object, in this case being a strange red letter that sat above my grannie’s front door. To this day we are not sure where the letter went, and stories about what it contained vary from family member to family member.
My immediate family lived with my grandmother for most of my childhood in Vallejo, California and, during this specific period, had just moved back into her home after losing our own in the 2008 financial crisis. I was thirteen years old and on my first winter break at a new school in a neighboring city, after a first semester defined by difficult adjustments to my new environment. During this time of struggling to make friends and fit in, accompanied by various financial issues my family strained to hide, I found so much peace in enjoying the simple things with my grandmother. I’d offer what little help I could with meals or in the garden and get rewarded with first dibs at sweets, sips of her coffee in the morning or getting to stay up late and finish whatever movie she’d found herself watching. Our already close bond, between a grandmother and her youngest, only grew during that last tumultuous year. The final portion of the story looks at how my family has always dealt with the pain of loss, through gathering and telling stories about the people we miss so dearly. While I’ve been a part of my fair share of these events since, this was my first and my writing is attempting to capture just some of the wonder I felt in the ceremony. So much of my identity is tied directly to my loved ones and the things we have gone through, and I feel fortunate to be able to express some of that with this piece.
