To Those Extra Large Bars of Hershey’s Chocolate

Source: http://pimentocheeseplease.com/

It would seem likely that in a house with seven people, a kid might feel crowded, and though that was often true, more often it was surprisingly lonely. People are busy. Even kids. Even in the ‘70’s, which we imagine as a time when children were free to roam about untethered by phones and schedules and practices of this and that. But there’s always been homework, always been sports to play, always been a reason to stay after school for a club. I wasn’t much a joiner and afternoons in the house were quiet, maybe just me and my little sister watching TV. Maybe I’m reading. It’s quiet.

I admit the mornings were different, especially for those few years we were all still at home and had all reached an age when it mattered what we looked like going to school. I remember, getting in the shower, hearing a voice on the other side of the door remind me, “Limit your showers to three minutes please!” I often think my habit for waking early developed purely from a love of hot water. Sleep in, and it’s nothing but cold. We flew in and out of the kitchen in bursts. Cereal bowls crammed in the sink. Lunches in brown bags lined up on the counter to grab on our way out. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Maybe twice a year, maybe more, on a Friday night, Mom would notice that for some reason we would all be home together. And not only that, there would be a something on TV that we all wanted to watch. Brian’s Song or a NOVA special. Without a word, even without us noticing, she would make a run to the drugstore after dinner, before the movie started.

The den was the smallest room and we crowded in, three on the couch, two on the loveseat, two on the floor with the Big Pillows. Mom would take a pillow. Sometimes I sat with her. And without a word or a fuss at all, she would pull out of nowhere a giant Hershey bar. The kind as big as my face. She’d just start passing it around. This chocolate is different that the regular bar. It’s thicker and takes longer to bite into. There’s just a hint that the sugar isn’t completely dissolved, but it’s still creamy. I let it melt in my mouth until I couldn’t stand it anymore and just bit it.

We are watching a special on PBS about lions. We are all in one room. We are all complicated. We are all confused, though we don’t all know it. We are all moving in different directions, though the trajectories right now are so close together that we can’t see how much they widen. We are all working something out. We are all quiet and we all love the chocolate. Even Dad has a piece. And when we finish the first bar, she does it. She brings out another one.