Yellow Bandaids

When I was little, I spent a lot of my time at my grandma's house. I remember everything was old and lacey, with lots of strange items and artifacts. There was a shelf full of seashells and strange exotic rocks. On the desk was a little bottle of water with a sponge at the end used to lick stamps. My grandmother was diabetic, and whenever I was around she would let me drop one of the saccharin tablets she used to sweeten her tea into her cup. We would sit together in her sunlit kitchen and watch them dissolve. Upon her nightstand she kept the biggest bottle of Rolaids I'd ever seen. I thought they were candy, and sneaked one every time I was there. She's been gone close to twenty years now, but every now and then something will spark a memory of her; some taste, smell or sound will transport me back to her and I will be with her again, if only for a moment. It happened the other day, strangely enough with a band aid.

As a child, I was constantly getting scrapes and bruises. This is true of any child, and like any mother mine kept a constant supply of antibiotic and bandages, tinctures and ointments. I remember sitting on the toilet as she reached into the medicine chest and pulled out the little bottle of Mercurochrome, its white label marked with a small red cross. I would squirm as she painted on the red stuff, it's bite stinging more than the wound. I suspected it was some kind of backhand punishment for getting injured. But then she would let me open the band aid, and all was forgiven. It was crisp and fresh and had a little red string you pulled to release it, a band aid ripcord. I loved opening them. Then I would be back outside, warnings of not to do whatever it was I had been doing ringing in my ears.

I'm not nearly as injury prone these days, but I have recently started exercising again and have cultivated a few calluses from the rowing machine. So foreign are these fruits of physical labor that I can't leave them alone. I absently pick at them until they are red and raw. I decided to cover them and went into the bathroom to get a band aid. I opened the box on the sink and was suddenly back in my grandmother's house again. Whereas my mother's band aids were always shiny and new, my grandmother's band aids were yellow with age, the wrappers falling off of them like ancient Egyptian mummy wrappings. Here in my own bathroom I was holding one of these artifacts, a band aid yellowed with age, the wrapper falling away like an autumn leaf. Only these weren't my grandmother's band aids. I remember buying them at Kroger.

The days slip away, and we don't always have proof of the passage of time, but here in my hand was a reminder. I've lived long enough to have yellow band aids like my grandmother. I suppose that's a victory of sorts.