a VCR and a candy bar

When I was ten and a half years old, the summer my dad didn't come home, we rented a VCR. He had been growing worse in his addiction, huffing and who-knows-what other substances he chosen to kill more brain cells with, and one night he never came home. Then another. I had come to be my mom's support to lean on over the year or so leading up to this point. At the house we had lived at prior to that one, before I knew what was going on, I remember waking up in the middle of the night hearing my mom sobbing in her room. I got up to see what was wrong and through tears, she did her best to explain to my nine-year-old self, the substance my dad was inhaling. Somehow, I got it even though I hadn't been exposed to substance abuse other than alcohol and pot(unbeknownst to me). I stood in front of her and wrapped my little girl arms around my mom and told her it was okay as my mom's tears soaked my nightie. That was when I felt called to the role I was to assign to myself for the rest of my life; to do whatever I could to comfort her, be the one she needed other nights like this, and make sure she didn't hurt or ever worry.

It was probably the second night or so that he hadn't come home. I think we(my expectant mom, 7-year-old little brother and I) all needed a distraction so my mom scrounged up some money and we went to Blockbuster to rent a VCR and a movie. We didn't have much money at all, put food in our mouths thanks to foodstamps, and rarely could afford treats like even a McDonald's happy meal, so owning a VCR was a luxury we could only envy although by this time they were commonplace in most homes.

I remember how excited and giddy I felt while we were at the store and my mom was filling out the rental form. To add to the excitement of the evening, my mother even gave my brother and I each a one dollar foodstamp to run in the Homeland across the street from our house to buy a candy bar. A movie at our house AND a candy bar. Surely, life doesn't get much better than this. 

We got home, figured out how to hook the VCR up to our TV, popped in the video cassette and there we were, actually watching a movie when we wanted to in our own house. It was like a dream, and to me as good as being at the movies and far better than the seven basic TV channels we were used to seeing on that screen. There was even a remote. 

That summer evening, with the pleasant breeze blowing through the open windows, the three of us escaped from what the unknown future might hold for us and pretended that everything was better than it was for a while. I don't even remember the movie we rented but I do remember getting to smile and laugh that night. And a candy bar never tasted so sweet.