Before she died, my mother read a book titled "The Things They Carried". It's about soldiers in the Vietnam war. But the last chapter isn't about the war at all. It takes place when the main character is a kid; and it's about him and a girl he liked. A girl that wore a stocking cap no matter how hot it was or what dress she was wore. My mother told me that the little girl was very sick and the boy was sad to lose her. Then she told me all about his dreams. I didn't understand. So she read it to me and I know that I should have been listening to the story, but I was busy listening to her. Instead of paying attention to the story about a boy who would become a soldier I let my mothers' low, calm voice wash over me.

When she finished I told her it was silly. I said something like that isn't about war at all. I didn't understand. Not long after, my mother got sick. Leukemia, very different from the little girl, but still kind of the same. But my mother wasn't like the little girl at all. She didn't go through chemo or carve away at her body to dig out the cancer. She just let it happen, so that when she went she's still look like the mommy I'd loved so much. I didn't understand.

After she passed I hid in her closet. I wrapped myself up in her favorite sweater and inside blankets she kept neat in the corner, folded for winter. I remember covering my eyes with a scarf so my tears didn't wash away her smell. And I remember feeling the hard edge of "Things Fall Apart" digging into my ankle the whole night.

I took it with me when I left and read. Just the last chapter. I couldn't care less about Vietnam, or Mr. Lemon, or guns I couldn't picture. I just read the last chapter and tried my hardest to hear my mother's voice inside my head instead of my own. By the end of it I was crying. I understood. The book wasn't about war at all, just the people in it.

I understood how hard it was for him to lose the stocking cap girl. And I understood why he slept so much. He just wanted to see her again, to get one last moment with the first girl he loved outside of his mother. It was sweet and sad, and good in a way that hurts your heart. And it was easy, so I tried it.

I remember forcing myself to sleep. Going to bed before the sun had finished setting, when other little boys were still outside raising hell in the streets. I remember the heavy feel of my mothers' pink fleece blankets and the itchy feel of my pajamas because dad couldn't do the laundry right. I remember that my dad didn't even notice, didn't come to tuck me in or pull me out. But what I remember most was the sleep itself, and how never once did she comes to me and give me that last moment I had hoped for.

And that, I will never understand.

I'd like to start off with saying I don't hate Burt. He's most likely my favorite dad character ever. But I've seen loss. Sometimes everything else just goes away for a little while.