Birthday Parties- a Time for the Truth to Come Out

He was welcomed into our lives in 1990 Sometime before, Max had died of a 'heart attack' and was found underneath my sister's bed. Stiff, as if frozen in time on the dusty floor boards with his panicked stricken face stuck as if concrete. I don't know how we decided to find a replacement, but my sister, Liza, my father, Baba, and I piled into his brown 4-wheel drive Colt Vista. We were on a mission to find a replacement for Max.
We found him at the pound, a Boxer Spaniel mix. In order to prevent any bickering, the puppy was put in between Liza and I in the back seat. Baba's eyes dashing towards his rear view mirror excitedly. At every red light and every stop sign he would turn in his seat, the seat belt digging into his neck, as if he were going to abandon his steering wheel responsibilities and make one of us drive so he could sit in the back with his new puppy.
Baba named him Sparkle. I can clearly picture Baba mowing the backyard in perfect straight rows back and forth sweating in his fading yellow shirt that read "Sparkle" on the front. As I watched him from the living room window I wondered, where is his Karla shirt? Soon his shirt would fade to white, but the bold black letters that spelled his dog's name would defeat the gravity of time. Would mine?
Since I was old enough to work a VCR, finding a home video tape was like finding Narnia in the back of my closet. I would wait until I had the house to myself to bring the tapes out into the living room and push them into the VCR. After I would find a new tape I would walk around the house feeling the hunger within me to watch myself on T.V. rewind, fast forward, pause, play. Scanning the tape for the moment I made the cutest laugh, the moment I made the most adorable face or made the sweetest gesture towards my younger brother, Caleb. Waiting for the love my parents had for me to reveal itself on the wood paneled T.V. Or to just witness the moments, the ones that as they were happening seemed too mundane and ordinary to have remembered.
Like when we decorated the Christmas tree. Caleb seemingly cracked out on sugar and Liza directing the placement of ornaments ever so calmly and me trying to follow her instructions. And Baba, luckily recording it all. Liza, Caleb and I all sitting under the plastic Christmas tree like packages waiting to be unwrapped. The living room lights get turned off and the tree lights are quickly plugged in and as if on cue we all ooo and ah, unintentionally in unison which makes us all burst into a fit of giggles. My mother turns on the living room lights and we all boo in disappointment. Sparkle parks himself in front of Baba who is sitting on the blue carpeted floor filming us. The camera zooms in on Sparkle and we become a fixture in the background. Baba starts to play a favorite game with the dog. The 'let him bite my shoe and growl' game that my mother dislikes for many reasons. The main one being the noise that ensues. Noticing where my father's attention has wandered off to, I crawl on the floor towards Sparkle and laugh at the camera, trying to get into the frame. This is futile.
Sitting in front of the T.V. with the VCR in reach of my fingertips, I start to notice that my father rarely makes an appearance on camera. He is the person behind the lens. For Caleb's birthday my mother planned a party, inviting her whole side of the family. With my father's family still in Taiwan, he had to find comfort in the company of his in-laws. Most likely finding little or none, he busied himself with the video camera instead.
This birthday party was a joint one. My cousin and Caleb each had their separate cakes, one happy birthday song and simultaneous opening of gifts. One gift Caleb received was a blue and yellow swing that he could be safely strapped and buckled into. Baba recorded Caleb in his swing and in the background Sparkle barked. The camera makes a nauseating jolt to the left, and stops at the sight of Sparkle looking up a tree frantically barking at a squirrel. Through the barking Caleb repeats "Here I am Baba. Here I am".
My father was also the only adult at the party to indulge themselves in starting a water fight with seven kids armed with water guns. My mother took my father's post at the camera as Baba takes the gardening hose darting around my cousins, brother and sister trying to fend us off. My cousin dips his water gun into the kiddie pool attempting to reload, unsuccessfully he dips again and again with the same result. Seeing he is unarmed I walk right in front of him and take my bright yellow and orange water gun and shoot him directly in the face. I turn to see the video camera is pointing at this scene that is casually unfolding in the backyard and quickly stoop down in a nurturing motherly way towards my cousin and whisper words of encouragement and hand him my water gun.
I watch the T.V. screen in disbelief. The sweet image I had of myself cracks and falls away.