A small town. The kind of American hamlet that causes you to start looking around for the Norman Rockwell signature. Hanging begonias. Storefronts with colorful awnings. A cute downtown.
There was a loud party happening on Main Street.
I followed the sound of distant music and many voices. I suddenly realized I was still wearing my pajamas. I shuffled into town barefoot, with sleep crusted in my eyes.
The sun was shining. Birds were cackling. People were everywhere. It was a veritable town-wide hoedown.
I saw women positioning casseroles on card tables. I saw children playing tag. Old men in aprons were deep frying hunks of fish.
There was music playing at the hardware store. Good music. The kind with twin fiddles. People were dancing before a plywood stage. Each front porch was crowded with people drinking lemonade and sugary tea.
Everyone was there, the whole gang. I saw them all. All my loved ones who died and left me behind. All my friends who met untimely ends. All my relatives who were called
home too early. All my kin.
They were all right here, holding plates of hot food, mingling with one another. Everybody was smiling, throwing their heads back, laughing until they couldn’t breathe.
I saw grandparents, deceased uncles, departed aunts, and cousins who died before they were old enough to know what life was about.
I saw multitudes of unfamiliar children, dancing while the musicians played “Turkey in the Straw.” I asked an old woman nearby who all these children were.
“Those are the babies who died in the womb,” the woman said. “Aren’t they precious?”
We were interrupted when a large pack of dogs came running through the town, careening up Main Street. They came stampeding like a herd of bison. Among them, I saw six of my own dogs.
I saw Lady, the cocker spaniel who died in my arms when I was a teenager.…