Security Blanket

Originally posted on myspace August 22, 2005:

Everybody had an object of affection in their childhood. The most common is a stuffed animal of some kind, the teddy bear being the most recognizable from a traditional stand point although it has fallen into disuse with the passing of time and the influx of variety. My brother went the conservative route and was deeply attached to his stuffed bear. For my part I had a child's blanket, what is commonly referred to as a "security blanket" or a "silkie". Both he and I devoted considerable amount of affection to these objects. I don't know why some are more attached to these toys than others; we were raised in a very loving environment and never wanted for attention.

My blanket was made by my grandmother, a small frail woman with a wry sense of humor. I remember her most sitting in her rocking chair softly singing to herself, tiny wax paper hands tapping in rhythm. As a child she was something of a tomboy. The family lived on a farm in Louisianna, and her older brothers used to win money betting that their kid sister could out-shoot any challengers. No one would have guessed that those tiny wax paper hands were once a crack-shot with a 22. She died a few years back, quietly passing on in the night, my grandfather holding her hand. Her funeral was the second and last time I ever saw my father cry, his big bear body hunched over in the oak pew of the little white funeral home. Face in his hands, tears running down the back of his hand. My great uncle Ed, my grandmother's brother, sat next to my father with red eyes and the occasional suppressed sob wracking his body. Two towering boulders of men, reduced to mud by the quiet passing of a dried leaf. Meanwhile my grandfather stood over the proceedings with a calmness that I took comfort in. He had a firm handshake and warmth in his sad smile as he moved amoung the mourners. He was a twisted root of magnolia wood, browned and hunched by years of labor in the hot Louisianna sun. Where the boulders were reduced to mud, he floated. Only once did I see him falter, as he turned and walked away from the little white funeral home. A path he had walked many times before in good company, now he walked in solitude.

The blanket itself was patchwork and backed by that smooth soft material that such blankets are commonly made of. The material folded over the edges of the outermost patches, making a smooth edge for the blanket. While my brother Daniel was able to use his Teddy as a confidant, a companion, my blanket did not lend itself to personification instead being more of a force than a personality. My earliest memories are of lying down and running my hands along the edges of my blanket. By placing the edge in my palm, I was able to use my thub to feed the material through my hand; an action I find soothing even to this day. While it didn't have a personality, I drew strength from my blanket, taking courage in it's presence. It didn't speak to me and I didn't speak to it, but there was a sense of primal communication. Slowly as I grew older the blanket became an object of purity and demanded of me a certain morality of action. Once I was old enough to talk I found that I could not bring my self to lie in it's presence, not even by omission. Nor could I mistreat my brother as I was often wont to do. In sight of the blanket no wrongs went unnoticed, and suddenly all things fell into right and wrong, true and false.

By the time I had reached middle school I had set aside my toys as well as anything that I decided was childish as I was eager to advance to the psuedo-adultism that was teenager. My blanket however remained in my bed. I did not devote near as much attention to it, and I certainly did not drag it behind me everywhere I went as I had pre-elementary, but it remained at hand if only in my sleep. As I made my way into high school it was ignored but was still present in my room. I remember on one occasion my mother expressed concern, wondering if there was some sort of developmental deliquincy in my personality due to the fact that I still had my blanket. By now my brother's Teddy had been boxed away as friends replaced the stuffed toy's role as confidant and companion. I angrily rebuffed my mother, upset and offended. When she brought it up again though, some six months later, I uncerimoniously folded my blanket up, now a tattered rag due to years of loving abuse, and put it away in my closet. And there it stayed, ignored and avoided as I went about the business of becoming an adult.

The first time I saw my father cry was just after high school. In childhood I regarded my parents as parahuman. Slowly as I matured I recognized that my mother had flaws as well as strengths and my thinking gradually adjusted as my mother became more and more human in my perception. My father however remained a towering boulder. He had flaws, but his flaws seemed somehow titanic as if he were a Greek God. I could recognize his faults but somehow they failed to humanitize him, and he remained an Icon, as much of a symbol of manhood and fatherhood as a person. Until one lazy sunday morning at my parents house when my view of my father was shattered. I was home for the summer from my first year of college and was awoken suddenly by my mother. Her eyes full of concern she told me that she was worried about dad. I went downstairs and met him in the backyard where he was pacing about, clutching his chest. He told me he was having a pain in his chest, said it felt like an iron spike had been driven into him. My mother joined us and then insisted that dad call the nurse hotline that was on his insurance card. He agreed, which tells anyone who knows him that he was really hurting. Normally my father refuses to see or talk to doctors if he can avoid it. Now up until this point my father had only four emotions that I could discern: happy, angry, dissappointed, and proud. He walked away from my mother and I and had a muffled coversation with the nurse hotline. He came back to us with a steady expression on his face. "What did they say?" my mother asked. My father replied, "Well they said that I..." and my father cracked. His face contorted and tears ran un-checked down his cheeks. In between sobs he choked out that the nurse had told him that he needed to go to the hospital because he may be having a heart attack. I was shocked to the very core of my being as I realize that my dad was terrified. I had never even allowed for the possibility that my dad could be scared and all of a sudden here he was. Not a boulder, not a Greek God, not an Icon, but a man; a frail flawed, terrified man. My mother was afraid for him, but she went to him and did her best to comfort him. A voice unbidden sprang from my lips and I heard myself say, "Come on. We'll take dad's car." My parents got in the back seat together and I drove them to the hospital. I can remember thinking that I was taking care of my father. Where my whole life he had taken care of me-- in one instant our roles were reversed. He had good cause to be scared, heart disease runs in his family and only a few years before one of his favorite uncles was killed by a heat attack. But for me I had no foundation, and looked at the world from the eyes of one who is responsible, instead of one who is a responsibility. It was determined at the hospital that my father had a bad case of indigestion.

Several times over the years I would go into my closet, often looking for something or storing away, and I would chance upon my blanket. And every time as my eyes fell on it I would feel a twinge of guilt. Guilt for abandoning it, for leaving it to collect dust in a dark corner of my closet. But I had moved on, I had grown up, and the blanket stayed where it was.

I left the family homestead, the world of my friends, my past, my family behind and moved to L.A. Shortly after Val (now my wife) followed, and she and I began carving out a life together. Most things that I left behind had been shoved in my closet, and as my parents slowly absorbed what used to be my old room this became a problem. So an unspoken agreement was struck, and now everytime I return to Houston I throw some things away and bring some things back with me. On one such trip I rediscovered my blanket, neatly folded on the top-most shelf. I brought it back with me and now it resides in mine and Val's bed, or next to it. I'm no longer concerned with the trappings of adulthood and take no embarrassment from it's presence. But it no longer is a security blanket, and every time I touch it I have a bittersweet feeling of loss. Loss for my childhood, my innocence perhaps; for a period of my life where a simple piece of cloth could banish my fears and make me feel safe in all ways. On refection I have found that I have lost many security blankets as I go through life. And I've picked up new ones. I call my friends in Texas on a regular basis and we talk about our doings maintaining an illusion that we are still part of each others lives. And we are, just not to the extent that we were, and both sides struggle to pretend that I'm not out here, and they're not back there. I take comfort in the presence of my wife Val, in our conversations and the moments we share together. But it is a two-edged sword for she takes comfort from me as well, and a balance has to be maintained. I continue my escapism habits of reading, video games, and role-playing; they have served me well through most of my life. But this is a hollow safety, for reality constantly makes itself known no matter how far I retreat into fantasy. With each of these blankets comes apprehension, because I never lose sight of the fact that once gone, it can never be reclaimed.