Shoebox History

by Abel Zhun

Shoeboxes on shoeboxes stacked up in the back left corner of the unfinished basement, which was under the kitchen, which was under my brother’s bedroom. I must’ve scaled metal shelving to gently pry those boxes down, a calculated shimmy, my heels teetering off the ledge. Knee bracing a post. Whole histories in those shoeboxes. A grandmother I only met, never knew. I am told that when I was very small, I crawled on her, on her deathbed, and she predicted my brother would be born in the spring. This was before my mother knew she was with child.

My brother was born in August. Close enough, I’d say. At least for the mythos of a family history.

My grandmother did not live to see it. I wish I had a better name for her, like I do for my mom’s mom, but, well. I never really knew her. There was no time for naming.

The contents of the shoeboxes were all dusty, even though sealed. Fading from stale air, maybe. I remember mostly small photographs, the size of my child hand. Medals. Jewelry. Tarnished but beautiful jewellery.

I’d spread those treasures across the cement floor, pockmarked, lit warm by window light. Artefacts from a life well before mine.

Dad was furious. Curious little child hands disturbing a sacred thing. I’m not sure exactly that he was angry with me. Moreso, the sacrilege of the act. His history, his family, delicate. A thing for shoeboxes up high. Not strewn across the floor, a gorgeous and poignant mosaic. What was upsetting, I think, was the risk and perceived carelessness of having those pieces laid out. Memorabilia so fragile in its finality. There would be no new family artefacts from that time. A sepia wallet photograph, once torn, is torn. No reclaiming it. No refolding the flag once it had been unfolded, not really. Who would any of us be to recreate the perfect funeral triangle, or age a medal kept away for twenty years? There is no equivalent for the significance of time, especially when one’s has passed.

I remember so little from that time. There are flashes, of course. The image of those medals in the light. My body, frozen on a little shore, copperhead darting at me from under a rock. Twisting a fallen tree branch out from a neighbour girl’s hands, determined that it was mine, came from my side of the woods. I remember much more than my sister does, whose childhood is at best a gap in her history. A blank space.

I remember little of her, then. Little of my brother. Little of my mom. I remember my dad, brilliant, laughing, terrifying. Anger like a rip cord.

There was a time when I was proud to inherit that. Walking down neighbourhood sidewalks, soft limbs and belly poking out of denim shorts, a white camisole, my fists clenched. Anger like steel plating. Anger like a salve. Waiting for a first throw, hair pull. Very big feelings for a ten-year-old. Big sense of justice. Big sense of right and wrong. I was always right, then.

What a terror to be wrong.