Menacing Globs of Memory

Creative Nonfiction, Abbey Elizondo

“Do you want some jelly beans?” My Papap asked me.

Fibbing was easier than trying something new. It stopped him from asking me if I wanted a few from the crystal candy dish next to his favorite leather loveseat. These dishes were scattered around the coffee tables within his arm’s reach, glistening in the vintage sunlight. Those candy dishes were refilled each time I visited. I saw him once a week, sometimes twice.

I think these candies were a source of comfort for a boy who grew up in the hills of West Virginia that now had to check his daily sugar levels. At least I think it was. I never asked him.

I’d trade these artificial blobs like currency on Halloween for chocolate bars and rock candy and salty caramel sweets. I was safe from them at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes he would take a few in between holiday meals, unearthing their sickly sheen from a bright candy bag. He was my trash can on Valentine’s Day when my classmates gave me these fake sugar beans instead of gooey chocolate, taking each bag with a smile. The smile I can no longer see when I visit the same house filled with the same crystal candy dishes, no longer in arm’s reach of his vacant loveseat.

If only he had taken more of the Red 40 candy pills than the ones that caused his liver to scar. Jelly Belly sounds childish compared to Lipitor.

“I want some jelly beans,” he asked my mom from his sterile hospital bed.

I couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted the night before his surgeon cauterized his stomach ulcers. My mom searched the hospital ward, looking for the elusive bag of sugar pills with no luck. And he broke my heart when I could no longer hear my grandfather’s voice ask for his favorite candy.

“Do you want some jelly beans?” My best friend didn’t know the heaviness of that question.

So, if you see me crying over these menacing artificial globs of memory, hug me longer than you think I need. It will remind me of him, of all the hugs I hold within my soul from him. He’s the reason my hugs are a little too long. I never know the last time I’ll feel someone’s soul against my own.