June 1st: Lily Tobias
The Story of a Day
8:30 a.m., Prelude
June 1, 2025. Today is twelve years ago. This is an illogical yet true statement.
10:00 a.m., Bad Advice
Sophie’s open house is today. I am fussing with my hair in the bathroom mirror. It’s at an odd length—not quite short, not quite long, seven months unevenly grown out. I try to smooth it into a twist, but pieces fall out around the nape of my neck.
Josh reaches for his glasses on the bathroom counter, but too quickly, and with too much force. They slide across the surface and right into the toilet.
“Just put them in some boiling water,” I say, and he does.
This was, as it turns out, bad advice. The rapid heating clouded the acetate of the frames, which were clear. And worse, the coating on the lenses was destroyed, a process called crazing wherein a web-like spread of hairline cracks render the glasses useless.
“I thought you’d done this before,” Josh calls out as he tries in vain to repair things.
Clearly I hadn’t, and the resulting destruction makes me feel both at fault and blameless.
Why had he listened to me? Did I sound so sure in my suggestion? Does he just implicitly trust the advice I give? Why did I give advice at all?
I wanted to help. I wanted to fix a problem. Instead, my advice has created a new one, and an unideal way to start such an important day.
1:00 p.m., The Party
We arrive at my in-laws’ house a few hours before the festivities are set to begin. I make myself useful, scrubbing the kitchen counters with a soapy sponge. Then, Sophie and I decorate the sunroom with banners, tablecloths, and a centerpiece of golden letters that spell G-R-A-D.
I hang her cap and gown in front of a window.
My own high school graduation feels far away. I remember how hot the gymnasium was, people’s mothers and fathers, grandparents, all fanning themselves with their commencement programs.
I have no recollection of the speeches given that day. At Sophie’s ceremony, the salutatorian spoke about failure. The valedictorian told jokes. We watched Sophie laugh at them through the 20x zoom of our video camera.
3:00 p.m., Guests Arrive
I haven’t seen much of this family since Easter. Once the majority of us have gathered, we say grace, eat barbeque, then chatter in our own little groups. I end up with the aunts and Josh’s mom. They are talking about all the things of their childrens’ they have kept.
Under my bed back home—my childhood home—there is a bin of these things, drawings I did in kindergarten, stories I wrote, journals, my rosary from first communion. I loved that rosary.
There are also grade school yearbooks—some, I’m sure, with scribbled-out faces or hearts doodled around crushes—and perhaps homework assignments on which I did particularly well.
When I tell the aunts this, I feel warm and close to my mom. I picture her returning to the bin, month after month, year after year, to add to it. To stow away something that, at the time, felt significant. A milestone. A miracle.
Sophie’s art class projects are displayed on the living room wall. Oil pastel drawings of flowers, self-portraits, sketches of cars. She gives us one to take home, a multi-media drawing of our much beloved cat, Willow, who died in 2020.
Sophie talks about her summer plans, the job hunt. I tell her about how I worked at the Fenton-Winegarden Library the summer before my freshman year of college. It was a romantic job, the building formerly a U.S. Post Office built in 1938. My friend Monica and I would sneak up into the catwalk—where, in its mail-room days, post office managers stealthily monitored employees—and shoot rubber bands at staff working the desk.
I advise her to get a library job. She tells me that last time she went to the library, she saw a man wearing a baseball helmet with an antenna strapped to it walking around outside.
I wonder what other advice she will get in the months to come. In the years to come. What she will listen to. What the consequences will be.
8:30 p.m., Postlude
On the drive back to our apartment, I receive a text from my mom. It’s a picture of Grandma, Papa, and me. In it, I stood between them in my white cap and gown—my graduation day, eleven years ago to the date. Five years later, Papa died. Five years after Papa died, Grandma got diagnosed with breast cancer. One year later, here I am writing this.
Twelve years ago, I met my husband. Today I am celebrating my sister-in-law’s graduation.
Past. Present. Future. These are all ways of saying now, today.
Lily Tobias is a poet from Fenton, Michigan. She has work published or forthcoming in Rockvale Review, Third Wednesday, The Dewdrop, Amethyst Review, Wild Roof Journal, ballast, and elsewhere. Lily publishes a monthly newsletter called Field Notes and runs Fragments, an annual cento project, and Poem Farm. Learn more at lilytobias.com.