with the word mom
because they see her heart
before they see her skin
that she’s only ever always been amazing”
An excerpt of the poem To This Day by Shane Koyczan.
From the book Our Deathbeds Will Be Thirsty.
IN LATIN, sacrum MEANS SACRED OR HOLY. SOME RELIGIONS BELIEVE THAT THE SACRUM IS THE LAST OF THE BONES TO DECAY AFTER DEATH, AND THAT ON THE DAY OF RESURRECTION THE BODY WILL REASSEMBLE AROUND THIS HOLY BONE. IN GREEK, IT MEANS ILLUSTRIOUS, GLORIOUS, MIGHTY, OR GREAT. GALEN OF PERGAMON, A PROMINENT ROMAN PHYSICIAN, CONSIDERED THE SACRUM THE GREATEST OR MOST IMPORTANT BONE OF THE SPINE.
As the sliver of blue moon slipped behind the starlit clouds that hung in the night sky, I knew without question that I was the happiest child who ever existed. My short life of eight years had been one of wonder, curiosity, and excitement. I was in my own dimension, an explorer devouring every fragment that life shone down upon me.
At night, I heard the wind as it whispered through the dense, dark forest that guarded the back of our house. I would drift in and out of my fantasy world that was so real to me that I often forgot the reality in which I was living. My imagination was, in itself, a drug.
I owned almost every He-Man action figure ever made, and I would line them up on my bed so that I could submerge myself in their world. A war could have been going on around me and I wouldn’t have noticed. A brown rug in my room stretched wall-to-wall, transforming the floor into a simmering lava pool while the air around me became cursed with demons. I would play in my room for hours, completely engrossed in the world of these creatures: alone, happy, and free.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the world I lived in; I just liked my imaginary one better. The magic of imagination was much more interesting than anything I had known . . . yet.
One day I crept down to our basement to watch TV. I was convinced that the downstairs was haunted by an evil ghost, but I took the risk because my curiosity was greater than the threat. The basement was unfinished and exposed a broken ceiling full of wires hanging down from above.
A large pool table that my father and brother sometimes used occupied a corner of the room, and the TV sat on a piece of smooth wood suspended by giant chains that floated above a cobblestone fireplace. Over the pool table hung a light fixture covered with the logos of popular beers and liquors. Pictures and mirrors decorated the unfinished walls—part modern-day saloon, part demolition site. It was beautiful and mysterious, and reminded me of a dungeon. The musty smell of the cobblestone fireplace overpowered the lingering cigarette smoke exhaled from my mother’s lips. I moved quietly across the floor so that I wouldn’t wake the ghosts.
As I looked for something interesting to watch on TV, I flipped through the channels and stopped on a station where I saw gymnastics for the first time. I will never forget this moment. When I die and God asks me about my life, I’m going to tell him this memory. The TV screen seemed to grow larger; as a matter of fact, it was the only object I saw. Everything else in the room disappeared. Watching the American gymnasts Mary Lou Retton and Bart Conner was like watching real magic. They flipped against gravity like a machine—powerful, strong, and flexible. In that moment I was hooked. I stared at the TV and felt a fire spark within me. Actually, it was not a spark; it was more like an explosion. My body grew warmer with a sudden feeling of jealousy, making me want to compete against this new emotion and transform it into achievement.
The room grew quiet and I heard my soul speak for the very first time. It was so loud it amazed me that the entire universe didn’t hear it. It simply said to me, “Repeat,” and I knew exactly what it wanted me to do.
I looked around the room and looked for something soft. I noticed our couch, which told the story of a family that had outgrown its comfort and moved on. Its emptiness and sadness were my solitude because I found a safe haven to attempt a flip. This old couch and its cushions would become my guardian angels and protect me from injury.
My first cartwheel wasn’t great, but by the fifth try, it was perfect. It felt good to me, like someone had bottled freedom and I had just taken my first drink of it. I felt that energy—strong, invasive, fluid, and alive. I would never go back to a life without that feeling, and would do whatever it took to keep it. I repeated the movements again and again, trying to expand and become something more. With every fiber of my being, I knew that movement would be my destiny.
That night I couldn’t sleep, and thought about crawling out of bed to do flips on the cushions. The crescent moon slipped through the clouds and the autumn wind rustled in the trees. I lay still and awestruck, anticipating tomorrow so that I could return to my new discovery.
My brother Michael, who is seven years older than me, was my idol, and I told him what I was doing. He was a fearless soul who never seemed to experience physical pain. I had seen him punch holes in walls, resulting in bloody, swollen knuckles that he would just laugh off. He was a tough guy, and I wanted to be just like him. He had the Italian brown hair from my father, the shorter Irish height from my mother, and the fiery temperament of both. He came downstairs with me and I showed him what I had achieved. With Michael by my side I no longer feared the evil spirits that I believed inhabited our basement.
Michael immediately came up with the idea that we could jump over objects and land on the cushions. He scavenged the basement and found a few things that we could dive over—a Styrofoam cooler for my father’s beer, a plastic cooler (also for my father’s beer), a vacuum cleaner, and anything else that we couldn’t easily break. We set up the cushions to land on, just inches away from the cold, stone hearth of the fireplace.
Being smaller, I ended up clearing the most objects. It was as if I had springs in my legs, and I intuitively knew how to use them. In my body, in my heart and soul, I knew how to part from gravity and interpret movement. I couldn’t articulate it, but my body knew long before my mind did, and it felt like I was uncovering ancient hieroglyphics.
Like an addict needing his fix, I would sneak downstairs and do gymnastics. I thought I could figure it out on my own and be successful. I tried doing a backflip, but fell on my neck. I got up and tried again, and the same thing happened. I did it again and again, and I kept landing on my head. My brother and sisters would come downstairs to see if I’d hurt myself yet and yell, “You are going to break your back . . . stop doing that!” But I didn’t stop; I couldn’t stop! I had heaven to build, and that was how I would lay down the first brick.
I continued to go to the basement to learn the trick, and one day it happened. I did it. I landed on my feet and not on my head. The accomplishment of the cartwheel became insignificant compared to the new power of the backflip. I was no longer human, but more like Superman or one of my He-Man action figures. My blood turned into concrete determination, suffused with happiness and amazement. I couldn’t wait to tell my brother and sisters, “I told you so!” and “I knew I could do it!” My body spoke louder than my soul, saying in the sharpest voice, “I want more!” I wanted more of that feeling and would do whatever it
