Too Heavy to Carry
by Jennifer Pinto
“Everything” by Jonathan Focht
I carried my son for nine months, then for several years after that in a sling, too afraid to set him free. He was quick and wily, always looking for mischief. At two, he ran away from me down the aisles of Walmart, stopping only briefly to look back at me and giggle before scampering off again. He liked to hide in the clothes racks at JC Penny’s. I lost him once for 45 minutes on the beach. So I carried him, holding on until he grew too strong and I was forced to put him down.
When he was a young boy I carried a large purse filled with: Band-Aids, wet wipes, a hairbrush, extra socks, crayons and paper, fish crackers, gummy fruit snacks, hot wheel cars and a clean pair of underpants. We spent many days at the park, the zoo, the mall, and I lugged that purse everywhere just so he would always have whatever he needed to keep him safe and happy.
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Headlamps, gloves, bullets, sleeping bag, javelins, AT- 4’s, meal replacements, extra socks and boots stuffed inside a ruck. Ninety-five pounds carried on his back and a twenty pound M-240 Bravo machine gun slung across his chest. Grenades strapped to his belt, a tourniquet and two and a half gallons of water. This is what my son, now 22 years old, carries as he marches to an army cadence trekking miles through the woods. He spends his days on Fort Moore, a military base in Georgia, as an infantry officer training for the possibility of war.
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As my son grew a little older, he picked random things up from the ground and asked me to put them in my pockets for safe keeping. Just like a raven, wherever he went he collected tidbits he found along the way. Scraps of colorful ribbon caught in a branch, small white pebbles, a piece of bark pulled from a tree, an animal shaped eraser, a lost zipper, small pine cones and dead cicada carcasses. I walked around with pockets stuffed, always careful not to let anything fall out.
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He has recently been assigned to the 82nd airborne unit out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Once he is finished with his training, he will move there and begin work as a paratrooper. When deployed, he will fly in a C-17 Globemaster airplane. After it crosses behind enemy lines, he will parachute out of the airplane carrying everything he needs to survive on his back: helmet, body armor, weapons, ammunition, radio, water and rations.
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When my son was in high school, he had surgery on his hip to repair a torn labrum. He couldn’t walk without crutches for twelve weeks. In the early days after surgery, he slept with me in my bed. He woke me in the night when he needed a glass of water or to use the bathroom. I brought the plastic urinal to him and then carefully carried it back to the bathroom to be dumped out. It didn’t bother me. Those were elusive days when he didn’t mind my company. We sat next to each other on propped up pillows and watched endless hours of reality TV.
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My son doesn’t have a lot of experience flying. In fact, he has only flown two or three times in his life. On those few trips, I wonder if he ever imagined himself jumping out of the plane. The C -17 Globemaster is a large plane designed to airdrop 102 paratroopers. The soldiers stand in rows, one behind the other. Their parachutes are connected to a metal bar and when they jump out of the plane, the parachute is automatically triggered. They jump from only 1500 feet so the landings are fast and hard. They spend most of their training learning how to fall.
Recently, I went to Fort Moore to visit him. I walked into his house, my arms heavily laden with party size bags of peanut M and M’s, cool ranch Doritos, homemade brownies, Dunkin’ coffee beans, and his favorite pumpkin chocolate chip squares. We spent that visit side-by-side on the couch binge watching Breaking Bad on Netflix. We were careful to keep our conversation light, not to think or talk too much about what might come next.
When it was time for me to leave, my son handed me a piece of paper containing a list of names and numbers. Friends from the neighborhood, old college roommates, girls he once loved, high school mentors, and his former boy scout leader. He said, “These are the people I want you to contact if anything bad happens to me. Keep it in your purse so you’ll always have it.” I brought it home and buried it in the bottom of my sock drawer. This was the one thing too heavy for me to carry.
Jennifer Pinto is a psychologist who writes both fiction and creative nonfiction. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband. She has three grown children and a Goldendoodle pup named Josie. She enjoys making pottery, cooking Indian food and drinking coffee at all hours of the day. Her work has been published in Sundog Lit, Halfway Down the Stairs, The Bookends Review, and The Bluebird Word (forthcoming).
Jonathan Focht is a writer who is trying his hand at visual art. He lives in Montréal.