CLS Sandoval

My First Dog

 

More fur than Lassie

but the same coloring

Coco was the best

Saying Goodbye to the Cousins, the Summer Before Second Grade

The last thing she wanted was for them to go.  They had talked about it all summer long.  Started saying their goodbyes way back in spring.  Everyone knew when their last dinner together would be.  Their last trip to the beach.  Their last sleepover.  Their last embrace.  As they pulled out of the drive, she waved at them and they didn’t wave back.

My Mother’s Relief

My sophomore year of high school, my boyfriend lived only a block or two up a hill from me.  We didn’t have cell phones in 1997, so we would agree to meet during the school day ahead of time.  He would walk down the hill to my driveway, and I would quietly pad down the stairs, out of the garage, to the side door, and through the side gate.  We would walk hand in hand to the baseball field at the park in the neighborhood.  We would sit, talk, make out, and smoke cigarettes, until one or both of us was sleepy enough to suggest we go home. It would be years before my mother brought up my midnight jaunts to the park in high school.  When she finally told me that she knew all along, she told me that she would follow me to the park.  She watched me a time or two.  The relief she felt when she saw we were just kissing and smoking made her turn around and allow me to live my illusion that she never knew.