The Golden Age

By Michelle Mena-Gomez

When I was a little girl, my grandfather built me a playground. He was old and plagued with weak joints, and his backyard was a modest piece of land, but nothing ever stopped him. I don’t remember much of him building it, just glimpses in my stained memory—the sharp aroma of fresh paint, my grandmother making him tuna sandwiches, me sitting by the rose beds, licking a popsicle as I watched him hammer away. I was excited to have my own playground. The prospect of it felt like owning a castle, and I waited anxiously for the day I could play on it.
One Tuesday afternoon, we went to my grandparents’ house like we usually did. Grandma made me fresh-squeezed orange juice from their tree—no pulp, lots of sugar and a hint of lemon, the way I liked it. When Grandpa came into the kitchen for his orange juice, I asked him the same question I had been asking for nearly a year:
“Is my playground done?”
I anticipated the same answer he always gave me, but instead, he finally said yes, it was done.
I didn’t finish my juice. Instead, I ran outside straight to the backyard where my new playground was and took it all in through a honeyed lens only a child can see through.
It was painted that bright blue color I always saw staining his pants. Yellow steps ascended into a windy tube slide, the kind that makes you dizzy. At the maw of the slide, there was a plastic pirate’s wheel, and next to that two sets of swings. On the topmost beam, the one that held the swings, there were words. It said something, but I couldn’t read yet. Even when I did learn how to read, I never cared.

Every Tuesday after that, I would swing and jump and slide until Mom said it was time to go. Each day brought a new adventure, a new scenario: I was a pirate on a ship, a mermaid in Atlantis, a princess in her castle. I would bring my teddy bears and push them down the slide, or I would have tea with my Barbies at the top of the slide. There was a magic swirling around that playground. I felt it all the time.
As I stand here, inches away from my greatest childhood possession, with a trash bag in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I feel these memories I once hid away rushing back to the surface.
Guilt swells in my heart, along with a pang of grief as I take in what my playground has become. The once vibrant blue is chipping away, the yellow steps, tinged amber with time. The slide is coated with cobwebs, and the swings aren’t even there anymore. The letters at the top of the playground have mostly fallen off. Now, it reads like ‘H GO N GE’. What did those words ever say anyways?
I take a drag of my cigarette and puff tendrils of smoke into the frosty air.
Mom calls my name, and I take one last look at the playground, at those faded letters, before I stomp out my cigarette and head inside.
In the bedroom, she sits on the floor surrounded by dusty boxes, an old cookie tin brimming with photos on her lap. When she looks up, she holds out her hand with one photo.
“Look what I found,” a numb smile playing on her lips. “Remember this?”
It was me, sitting at the end of my slide, on my playground. It did not feel like me though. The girl in the photo felt so much more vibrant. I can’t remember the last time I felt that. Happiness seems to have left my body. Her hair’s messy and her knees are stained with the dirt. She’s wearing her favorite Dora shirt and Velcro sneakers because she can’t tie her shoes yet. Then I notice Grandpa in the background of the photo, blending into the roses. He’s on the bank of roses eating a tuna sandwich, smiling at the little girl.
I blink my tears away, and run my hands over the photo, over my grandfather.
The words on the top of my swings—I noticed them now. I finally could read them, and now that I knew what it meant, I ached even more to experience that moment in my life once again.

The Golden Age.