Butter My Bread (Blushed the Same Hue)

*First published in Mothers, Fathers, Sons, & Daughters | An Anthology Volume II by the Blah Blah Blah Writer's Group, 2024*     

            

            I can count on my hands how many family members are left.

Great Uncle Harvey was an old fashioned man, or at least he appeared that way. I only ever knew him holding a brown cane with a curved handle, his glasses with their shades attachment for the sun. Stacks of newspaper littered his apartment and added a worn musk. Only the dim overhead lighting provided illumination as the blinds were always drawn. Down the hall lay his sister’s room, with whom he spent his golden years, unmarried. 

My father helped him get groceries regularly when I was in elementary school. We also brought along my older brother. Jewel Osco is a standard regional grocery chain in the Chicago area that I assume Uncle Harvey preferred because I don’t remember him living particularly close to the one we always frequented. I was settled only when Papa bought me chicken fingers. We sometimes ventured to the nearby playground as well, though I was never an outdoorsy child.

The last memory I have of Harvey is sitting in a hospital room, him hooked up to the routine machines, me wearing a surgical mask for the first time in my life which fit awkwardly around my glasses. He was awake. I didn’t know why he was there. Old people get sick. We were talking. I was explaining the plot of the first Percy Jackson book that I had just read. He listened, head bobbing up and down with understanding, looking straight forward. I was at his side, not too close. 

Though my brother would contest this, I swear he cried at our grandma’s funeral.

I didn’t enjoy her company. She was smothery and didn’t understand my boundaries. In her defense, I didn’t understand how to communicate those boundaries. All I could do was play Pokemon FireRed on my Gameboy during dinner to distract myself, clicking my way through the directionless black cave. Bubby had good intentions, though, always handing me McDonald’s Happy Meal toys. 

She spent her last years with her second husband, who she died before. They lived in a senior community. The entrance was blocked by a tiny vestibule with a dial system and passcode function. My dad would always poke the silver square buttons to let us in. Though there were no newspapers, the atrium and apartment still had that worn smell. 

Rose was also a frequent hospital patient. She had diabetes for most of her life and required dialysis on the tail end of it. The chair she sat on was blue and big but not plush. IV cords ran through to a machine with wheels that spun like spokes on a bicycle. 

I never knew her first husband, my grandfather. He died before my parents were even married. He’d had polio as a child which contributed to his early death. Though I am not a family-oriented person, I cannot help but wonder if there is a missing piece in my soul, and whether that puzzle would be complete if the man whose name I cannot remember was with me for some of my life. 

He was an artist, just like my father. There was a painting in a back closet that is stored somewhere else today of a man’s face, cheeks like fresh apples high in surprise and blushed the same hue, because a bumblebee popped right onto his nose. 

Sometimes I forget that my dad is not an only child because he cut off his sister years and years ago. They just don’t get along. I know that Ellen and I agree on one thing: we would rather stay in a nice hotel than go camping. We agreed on that while sitting in a hotel room.

Her family is full of diabetes. The Wii Fit in their family room couldn’t change that. The LazyBoy recliners in their bedroom probably didn’t help. My cousins on my mom’s side keep in touch with her even though they’re not blood related. My aunt, also on my mom’s side, thinks she and my father just have a difference in opinion.

Papa is no-bullshit. He has two sons and went through a divorce and is self-employed. If he’s out, he’s out. I didn’t like her much anyways. 

That leaves Bubby’s sister, my Great Aunt Barbara, her sons Reid and Barry, Barry’s wife Lori, and their children Jake, my age, and Dylan, a few years older. I tolerated Ellen and Bubby but did not tolerate Jake. I am a refined, intelligent, focused man. Jake is an airhead. Well, he was an airhead. Now he’s around 6’5’’ and could kick my ass—and he’s more disciplined and self-directed. Good job, Jake. 

Aunt Barbara and her husband Marty’s house was closer to Chicago in a quaint suburb with old, misshapen houses. Her two pugs with their faces like smooshed bagels would tap around the house, wanting us to pet their wrinkly bodies. One black, one white. The freezer hosted ice cream cups with small wooden spoons. While Harvey’s apartment was full of twilight items, Barbara’s house had sparkling knicknacks—kaleidoscopes, dolls in her room, and unique wall art, most notably a framed photograph of a mother giraffe kissing her baby. 

We only sometimes went to Passover and Hanukkah at her house as it was mainly my mom’s overloaded side of the family that hosted. We had foam masks representing the 10 Plagues that God sent down upon the Egyptians until the Pharaoh released the Jews from slavery. 

Jake asked one time, “Mom, can you butter my bread?” He held up the bread and butter knife. I thought, not yet possessing an esteemed vernacular, What a stupid fucking thing to say. He still had some baby fat around his cheeks and his voice hadn’t dropped yet. 

The backyard held a small koi pond, the orange spots easily cutting through the water’s distortion. The basement had burned CD’s of various movies and a family computer. Reid showed my brother and I a quick YouTube video during the platform’s early days, an offensive piece about a guy who has Asperger’s and can also poop burgers. Reid himself is on the autism spectrum, but there wasn’t as much pride or awareness back then. I also think that the creator ripped that idea from a South Park episode. 

Marty passed, and so did the pugs. Barbara is currently living just fine, having had a successful cataracts surgery. Her gray hair is forever voluminous and her lips partial to purple lipstick. 

I visited Chicago last year and we got lunch at this corner restaurant on her street. The apartment she moved into is great, with a renovated kitchen, tall ceilings on the main floor, and a back deck. Her knicknacks still lie around everywhere they can find a spot. After we ate and she got tiramisu to go, we walked back to her place. I was about to get in my car when I noticed that she was using a lot of effort to get up the short flight of stairs. I asked if she needed help and she said she was all good. I entered my car but didn’t leave until she got up to the landing, having to lean on the railing to make it up.

But she made it up.

I am Jewish on both sides, but my mom has the added Hispanic piece which makes the whole family more boisterous and drama-filled. Even the Jewish part is large, loud, and extended. 

Judaism is supposed to be a closed religion, we don’t want you unless you make a huge effort to convert. I’m not religious anymore, nor was my father who snuck non-Kosher cans of chili with his friend during childhood. I imagine them eating on the front steps of his house. My mom moved away from it as well, having always prioritized the family aspect of religion. Aunt Barbara still practices, but she has also extended her beliefs into that of astrology. My glasses may hide my sculpted nose, but the biggest marker of my cultural Judaism is my introversion that is muffled on my mom’s side, but is impossible to ignore on my dad’s. 

Aunt Babara doesn’t like staying over at people’s houses.

Uncle Harvey lived with his sister until the end.

We quietly dip our apple slices into honey while reciting scripture. 

We don’t blast music during the holidays.

We stay close and huddled in our cozy homes.

I thought differently about Bubby after she died. While on a balcony in Mexico when I was 11 years old, I regretted not being closer to her. I’d made a plate in pottery class for her second husband but never got a chance to give it to him before he passed. During her funeral, when I glanced over at my brother, his mouth was wide but his eyes blocked by sunglasses on that bright day. He did in fact cry, because our grandpa on our mom’s side was holding his hand. I don’t think Uncle Harvey was truly understanding me in that hospital room, but he wanted to try. 

During my elementary years and beyond that, I had difficulty eating in public, especially restaurants, because my anxiety would plug my stomach. I didn’t eat much when we were out, so I was always hungry by the time we got home. I told my dad as we were walking to our apartment from the parking lot that I wanted to eat something. He was fed up a bit by that point, so he went on the guilt-trip starving-children-in-Africa rant, saying some people only have bread and butter to eat. 

He said that as if bread and butter isn’t delicious, as if bread isn’t a cultural staple. I can spread the butter on myself, but that doesn’t mean I have to, doesn’t mean I want to; because before I know it, the people attached to that memory will only be able to live on in memory, in a painting in a closet, a wondrous giraffe framing in my bedroom, or in a dream like Bubby, her face clearly and strikingly similar to my father’s.