When I was in fourth grade my mother disappeared and I never saw her again. At first my father wasn’t sure what to tell me but he realized that the truth was better than obfuscation so he told me she was admitted to a sanitarium which I didn’t understand so then he explained she was simply sick and resting which I definitely did understand.
For as long as I could remember my mother was sick in a certain way. She’d be doing dishes or loading laundry or scrubbing the tub and suddenly become overwhelmed with sadness and break down weeping uncontrollably. My real mother would then disappear and something else would come take her place. Something unfathomably sorrowful and inconsolably defeated with wide empty eyes like blackened pools of despair. My father would dismiss himself during these episodes and retreat to the garage to work on his wood carvings while chainsmoking cheap generic cigarettes.
I came to realize my father was probably also sick. Just in a different way. His personal salvation came from his woodwork where he spent hours upon hours upon hours meticulously whittling away at unwieldy chunks of tree trunks until something miraculous would take form.
“I’m not creating the shape itself. I’m just taking away the exterior bit by bit to reveal the truth inside.”
I would sit in the corner of the garage and watch my father reveal the true nature hidden within a solid stump as the cheap brandless cigarette hung from his lips and defied gravity with the length of its ash. It would take an extraordinary amount of time and effort for him to complete one small sculpture and when he finally finished the piece he’d place it on a display shelf inside our garage where no one on the outside would ever see it.
“Maybe I’ll take them to the fair one day…”
Shortly after my mother went away I was watching my father as he worked on what he hoped would be his most magnificent masterpiece when he stopped and stared at it for so long I thought time had stopped. The chainsawed hunk of an old live oak was sitting on its side and one half of an elephant was stepping out of it with a proud chest and strong legs and its head held high. But the eyes were absent. There was only a rough outline in the grains where the eyes should be.
“I think maybe this is your mom… Or maybe it’s me…”
My father stared at the unfinished elephant and I watched him become more sullen than I’d ever seen him as he searched for something that seemed entirely lost.
“The circus is in town. We should go to the circus and see a real elephant.”
My father had never taken me to the circus before but the next day we were in the car with the radio turned up louder than it should be and him with his cheap cigarette dangling from his lips as he focused on the road like we were driving in a rainstorm. When we arrived at the big tent my father immediately went to buy me cotton candy and sugared peanuts and popcorn and soda but nothing for himself. I felt like he was gorging me in order to purge whatever bad spirits haunted him and I felt obliged to eat everything and remind myself of how enjoyable it was supposed to be even though it made my stomach sick.
We settled in our seats as the lights went down and the ringmaster came out and the audience cheered but I could tell that something wasn’t right. My father was staring off into the distance as the big top flapped above our heads and the acrobats bounced around and the tigers did their tricks and whenever I’d catch my father’s eye he’d smile at me but I could tell he wasn’t really smiling. Somewhere behind us a baby started crying and making that shrill sound that babies make when something is very wrong and you don’t know what to do to make it better and eventually the mother got up and took the baby outside and never came back.
When the clowns came tumbling out my father was looking up at the canvas of the big top rippling in the wind and mumbling like he was having a conversation with himself as he stared off into that vacant space between him and the rest of the world.
“I’m doing what I can to help her stay strong…”
The clowns jumped and rolled and bumped into each other as clowns do but my father never once looked at them even though he told me they were his favorite. After the clowns came the elephant. It was just one elephant and when she arrived in the center of the ring it felt like all the air under that big tent whooshed out like a vacuum. She had scars on her back and tattered ears and she walked like she was dragging her body as she looked around wildly at the crowd. The elephant’s gaze stopped on me for a split second and for as long as I live I’ll never forget those dark watery eyes.
The trainer prodded the elephant to do a few tricks and I noticed that my father was unnaturally transfixed as the animal stood on her hind legs and balanced a chair on her trunk. With each trick the elephant became more reluctant and with each trick the trainer prodded more aggressively until the elephant eventually refused to perform. The elephant then let out a giant trumpeted cry that was the most anguished sound I’d ever heard and it sent a collective gasp throughout the crowd. The elephant then reared up and the trainer stepped back and the elephant shook her head from side to side like she was trying to shake something loose inside her brain. A half-dozen men with ropes and harnesses came running from the wings and tried to control the animal however they could as the clowns came out to distract the crowd but the damage was already done and the clowns only made it worse.
My father was frozen in his seat and perhaps unaware I was still sitting next to him stewing in abject confusion as they subdued the elephant and ushered her away. My father then suddenly snapped back into the moment and tried to reassure me that they’d care for the animal even though I knew he didn’t believe it himself.
“She’ll be okay… They’ll make sure she’s okay…”
Two weeks later my father disappeared and I never saw him again.
I went to live with a foster family and they let me bring my father’s unfinished carving of the eyeless elephant stepping out of the chainsawed tree stump with its proud chest and strong legs and its head held high and it remains one of my most cherished and prized possessions. I never learned what happened to either of my parents but I’ve learned to accept and to persevere and to carry on despite the pain of loss. Now whenever I look at my father’s incomplete masterpiece I see that elephant at the circus pleading with that bottomless look in its watery eyes and that look has stayed with me more than anything because it contained everything. I used to wonder why that elephant didn’t just rise up and crush everyone around her with her massive legs but I’ve since realized that when you’ve lived a certain way all your life you might not know the magnitude of strength you actually possess.