Single Moment Narrative

In a single moment… I cannot tell you the exact day I left my dad or the exact day my grandparents passed away. I only remember the fragments of their lives that are engraved into my mind. My mind becomes a maze as I try to recall the exact day depicted in the photo. I can only recall mere seconds... I am a mere infant, snuggling into the smaller figure of my mother, with her long hair tied in a ponytail and jean skirt, as she stands behind a miniature version of my brother, still wearing a mountain of red curls on his head with an astonished expression etched into his puffy cheeks.. Standing next to my mother is my Grandfather, smiling with his clean bill of health and typical short sleeve shirt that screams its ready to sit by the ocean side, as he holds onto the handles of my grandmother’s wheelchair. All but I ,are staring to the side with such wonder. We’re standing behind a backdrop of trees and the garage of our Long Island home. Captured in a single moment is a piece of the past that brings smiles to our lips. ***

Even as a child, it is undeniable to say that I

Here, they are alive. Here, we are timeless, as we all stare at, what my family classified as ‘bluebirds’ whose feathers were layered with red and yellow. At the time, my cousin and aunt were still in the Bronx, watching over the house they and my grandparents lived in at the time. Behind the camera is my father, probably trying to tell us to look in the camera in vain. Maybe he too was distracted by the beauty of the bird that seemed to unite us in a single moment. Even for the years to come, divorce, death, sadness, it is in this very image that we are truly unified as we take a single moment to acknowledge that, in the end, we are