Holding Bubble Bees

Holding Bubble Bees

Table of Contents

1. The Bees
2. Her
3. No Fear
4. Amazing Grace
5. Funnies
6. Blowing Bubbles

The Bees

    I used to be afraid of bees. I used to scream at the sight of them, run away, hide in the corner of my room until Mutti came to get me. When I was younger there were a lot of bees where I lived. They were innocent, of course. All bees are. A bee will not sting a person unless it is necessary- for when they sting a person, they die. All of their organs pool out and they fall to the ground, only to be stomped on.
    There were a lot of bees in the backyard at the house that I lived in with my family. They lived between the trees, hiding in the grass and bushes. They hovered over the surface of the old pond and rested on the wood of the work bench that leaned against the house. I was never stung, but I always kept an eye out.
    We owned a lot of animals, too. I tried to keep them away from the bees, because I wanted to make sure that the animals stayed safe. But we had too many- we had a zoo in our house. Five cats, two dogs, a rabbit, four chinchillas, a cage full of rats, another cage full of mice, and a guinea pig. I couldn't keep the bees away from all of them forever, no matter how hard I tried.
    We owned a shovel. I never got to touch it, but my brother used it a lot. I never saw the holes, but I could always find the places where the grass had been torn away and the soil had been packed differently. I would stare at them solemnly and the bees would just fly away. I miss all of the small ones we buried.



    Her
   
    I was eleven when I met her. It was Thanksgiving. My uncle was bringing his new girlfriend and her daughter along for the meal. I shook hands with the daughter, and her hands were soft and small. My own were soft as well, though they were calloused. We shook hands, and we became fast friends, doing everything together, going everywhere together, playing games together, ogling at boys together.
    I had other friends, too, from school. I played games with them, pretend games that involved ghosts and magic. But we were growing up, and pretending was such an awfully childish thing to do. We acted as though what we did was real, and that the rest of the world was blind.
    I told Her about the ghosts. I wanted to impress Her, to make Her think that I was powerful or something like that, because we were constantly competing, trying to be better than the other.
    “I can see ghosts,” I told Her proudly. “And I have the ability to let them possess me.”
    Of course She thought it was spectacular. She wanted in on the game. Slowly but surly, over the next few months, I was forced to incorporate Her into the game- I had to act as though She were a mermaid princess. Then, as She developed her make-believe powers and Her supposed beauty, She wanted more. It was my job to supply Her,
    Some of them didn't even have names. Most of them didn't have personalities. They were Her boyfriends, the 'privileged' and made up souls that haunted my days. They were me, I was them. Rules no longer exist, or personal opinions. Reality was stretched, sexuality was disrespected. I was taken advantage of. I didn't tell anyone for about a year, though I did eventually tell my Mutti. Staring down at my hands, mumbling my words, and she didn't seem surprised. She just apologized.
    “I should have known,” she said, and she hugged me.
    My calloused hands grew ugly in my eyes, and I was sure that Hers were just as clean and smooth as before. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.
    One day I called her mother, my uncle's girlfriend, and told her about what had happened. She didn't believe me, but that's okay because at least my hands weren't dirty anymore.




    No Fear
   
    I've never cried at a funeral before. I always cry after, when I've got my thoughts to myself. My grampa died when I was a year old, so I never got to meet him. But when I was five, we all visited his grave: me, my parents, my siblings, my aunt, and my gramma. The cemetery was fairly empty that day. I still remember how overcast the sky was, and how green the grass was, and how beautiful all the trees were. I didn't sit under them, though, on one of the many benches available. I sat on the grass, plucked at the flowers, and rested my chin on my knees, crying about my dead grampa that I never met.
    There were lots of bees there. My brother told me not to be scared, and that I was being ridiculous. He was always braver than I was, and still is.
    By that time I already knew that a bee would only sting a person if it really needed to. I kept this in mind as I approached one buzzing fellow, slowly making my way forward and bending to my knees. The bee ignored my presence, fluttering from one tiny flower to the next. I sat forward to see it better, and it was then that I saw just how fuzzy the bee was.
    It was adorable, this furry little thing.
    “Don't be scared of bees,” he said, my brother. “They're not going to hurt you.”


    Amazing Grace

    “My daddy can't see.”
    I've always known that he was blind. I can't think of a single time that I didn't know. Ever since I first knew how to blow bubbles, ever since I first started chasing butterflies, I've always understood that my father couldn't see a thing. Up until a couple years ago, he'd always had his guide dog, Bowler, who was a black lab with a bad hip. Bowler had been a part of the family since I was a month old.
    “Why's he got that cane?”
    People didn't know that he used his cane to sweep the sidewalk to make sure that he wouldn't run into anything. He had the cane, and Bowler, and sometimes he still ran into street signs or other people.
    “Can he see the faces I'm making?”
    Often times, my siblings and I, and sometimes my friends, would stand in front of him and make silly faces at him because we knew he couldn't see. What we didn't know was that he could feel the air shifting around us, and he could hear practically every move we made. My daddy had good hearing.
    “My daddy can't see.”
    I like to show him off, like a special pet. Whenever someone new meets him, whenever someone comes to my house, my tan and red house with the short pine tree out front, I always have to tell them that he's blind. He's my daddy, my daddy who can't see.


    Funnies

    People in my family know how to laugh.
    My brother’s funny is like medicine. He's a genius. He always knows just what he can say to make a person laugh so hard they cry. He makes jokes about life, about politics, about religion, and about subjects that would usually be serious. When I was really little, whenever I would scrape my knee or hit my head on the edge of a cupboard, he wouldn’t just tell me it was okay, like most people. He would make sympathetic jokes, and soon I’d be laughing more than crying. As I got older I stopped crying altogether. Now, if I accidentally hurt myself, the pain doesn’t last that long--the medicine of laughter lasts forever. My brother can cure anyone.
    My sister’s funny is a thorn. She likes to poke fun at people. Even if she admires someone, she'll make a joke about their personality or appearance. She talks about people that come into the store she works at, and about people on the Internet. She can be just as funny as my brother, but in her own way. Her husband likes to make fun of people, too, but more in the teasing sort of way. He says it to their faces, but in such a way that they laugh, too. He helps people to be able to laugh about themselves.
    My dad’s funny is a lot younger. He has a really dorky sense of humor. People don't always laugh at what he has to say. He gets really funny when he starts pretending to argue- he's really good at bantering with me or my mom, and we always end up giggling madly. I wish he would do that when my siblings were around- then they could see that dad can be humorous, too. They’ve never seen his funny before.
    My mom’s funny is like an old book. She’s the one that knows best. She's the wisest of us all, and because she knows so many years and so many tales and just so much about life in general, she knows which strings to pull and which buttons to press to make us laugh. She jokes like my brother. In fact, he got his funny from her. It's like when we start joking around, they become part of the same brain and they're always on the same page.
    I don't really know what my funny is yet. I'm young, undeveloped. I'd like to think that my funny is a mix of everyone else in my family- I know how to joke around just like each and every one of them. I can make people laugh about current events in politics. I can get people to laugh at themselves. I can argue playfully with someone to get them grinning. But I don't know what I'll be like in ten years, or how much my funny will have changed.