Fireworks: July 4, 1956

     The family is all outside in our backyard talking about work, their houses or, in the case of Uncle Johnny, another one of those quick-fix ideas he’s swindling grand mom. They all migrate towards the back of the yard where Lois set up all the food, but in the front of me is Michael holding tight his bright red ball. He never goes anywhere without that ball, along with Lois’s protest because he tends to break things. But that’s my boy, the future pitcher for the New York Yankees.
     The sun is blinding or the heat is making the air shimmer because Michael’s face seems hazy, almost obscured from sight. You can make out his hair, cut short and parted to the side, an obvious sign Lois had gotten to it earlier trying to make him presentable for the family. His cheeks are a faint pink and freckled giving him a boyish quality that will probably last him his whole life. But his smile has disappeared, the one I called his fighter’s smile because he had just lost his first tooth. And those clear blue eyes the one’s that will drive the girls wild when he grows up, you can’t see them at all.
     He stands restless next to me, fidgeting, excited to take part in the night’s festivities. He jumps up and down and swings his arms back and forth, calling to the family to get ready. Was it all the excitement that he wanted my attention, or maybe just another accident Lois always feared? That little red ball leaves Michaels hands flying straight for the just lit firework he had picked out on his own. It flies past his face and bursts blue and white for the Yankees over our neighbor’s yard. He falls to the ground, clutching his face, screaming out for Lois. No girl will ever fall for those eyes, he will never look down the pitcher’s mound of Yankee’s Stadium, you can’t see his eyes; but I always will.