Creative Non-Fiction
By Laura Rohm
“Oh my god, they’re yelling code blue, oh my god,” my mom sent me via text.
I paced around a food truck with a friend standing nearby.
“I think my grandpa just died,” I said.
Back in 1998 when my great grandmother died, my Mawmaw described death to me as “a better place.” As a five-year-old, I imagined the dark night sky cradling the Treasure Chest Casino in Kenner, Louisiana. A casino boat on Lake Pontchartrain my grandparents frequented that held outdoor concerts. I imagined fireworks in the background. That was “a better place.”
Whenever a friend died, it’s what I imagined.
On October 22nd, I couldn’t imagine fireworks or a casino or a live concert. Instead, I was flooded with memories of the Iris parade in the 1990s. Iris is traditionally a women’s only parade that takes place the Saturday morning before Mardi Gras.
I saw myself on a cold, sunny February day, wearing a bright pink jacket and standing next to my Pawpaw. He was eating a bag of shelled peanuts and dropped one on the ground.
“I found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut just now,” he sang in his proper deep singing voice. He would try to feed me the peanut off the ground, but even as a kid I cringed at the thought of eating something from the New Orleans ground. He lifted me up on his shoulders and said, “You’re getting heavy. I don’t know how long your old Pawpaw can do this.”
A better place doesn’t feel like fireworks or a casino boat anymore, but a place with peanuts, brisk February air, and an old Pawpaw.
Laura Rohm recently completed her clinical psychology internship and is currently a trauma psychology postdoctoral fellow. In her free time, she loves hiking, traveling, and reading.