The object is a once-shattered scrap of white ceramic adorned with bulbous flower decals. A fluffy pink pom-pom is smushed between the bird’s tapered face and the rest of its broken body: a filler for the glass piece that used to belong there, now lost to time.
As for the innards of the bird, it cradles a molten candle, the waxy center yellowed with age, travel, and filth. The wick is hooked and warped, the vessel’s edges coated with clumps of old hot glue and uneven bits of glass.
I don’t know why we call it the goose with the broken neck—I think it looks more like a delicate little dove with its sawtooth feathers and backward head. Regardless of what type of fowl it is, the poor ceramic warbler has become a cherished family heirloom—a relic with origins from the past, links to present scheming, and hope for future bits of mischievousness.
I have a relatively large family on my mom’s side: one grandma, three aunts and uncles, and eight cousins—combined with my own family, that makes 11 grandchildren, four sets of parents, and spearheading the raucous bunch is my adorable grandma, who we all call Boomba.
Throughout the years, the size of my family has fluctuated: loved ones have come and gone, and factions of the group have flocked to different areas of the country to settle down. We try to gather as much as possible: annual trips to the northern shores of Michigan, gatherings every Christmas Eve at Boomba’s house where we all convene from all corners of the country to exchange gifts together—the family gatherings may be infrequent, yet I can confidently say that the quality of the memories far exceeds the quantity.
And, with every interaction that happens, the poor goose with the broken neck has to follow, the current goose’s keeper shooting furtive glances to remain unnoticed under the vigilant eyes of everyone else.
The tradition started in the early 2000s when my Aunt Bobber, my mom’s youngest sister, was getting married. Once my Aunt Sue won the silly goose during a game at Aunt Bobber’s bridal shower, it was dubbed “the goose with the broken neck,” elevating the object’s status from a homely decoration to an unsightly bird candle with an entire persona.
Since that doomed moment, the warped bird has been popping up in the most obscure places.
Not long after the bridal shower, my mom found the goose with the broken neck lurking in a covert corner in the bathroom of our old home. At the time, the goose was whole, its surface glossy and polished from novelty, the notches of the neck round and standard.
My mom then took it upon herself to stash the goose with the broken neck elsewhere until it was discovered by someone else in the family.
To this day, the tradition lasts, the goose materializing under the golden California sun or in the sock drawer at Boomba’s house. Nobody knows who will make the next move with the goose with the broken neck, and, at times, the goose will lay forgotten, decomposing under a bed or stalking within the dim corners of a home.
My favorite story was when my mom managed to squeeze the goose with the broken neck into Aunt Sue’s stroller. At the time, the undercover tradition was fairly new. My mom told me that she crammed the goose into a folded pocket of the stroller so it could follow Aunt Sue all the way back to California.
My aunt recounted the story for me: she was strolling along Fell Street, striding past the sandwiched houses in the heart of San Francisco, the stroller leading her morning saunter up and down the treacherous city slopes. The goose with the broken neck was bumping around in the flap, begging to be discovered.
The goose was found and lost. Lost and found. Hidden in suitcases, concealed in baseball hats, shattered into a dozen pieces on the floor, fused together with a piping hot glue gun. The poor bird had no idea what life would be like in the family, especially being the object of our discreet shenanigans.
The goose with the broken neck was once again with my Aunt Sue, carried with her decades later on her journey from California to spend the Fourth of July with the family. She and Boomba engineered a clandestine plan to send the goose off to college with my older cousin, Mia, who would be attending the University of Michigan in the fall.
Boomba managed to sneak the goose with the broken neck into one of Mia’s drawers as they were packing up all of her possessions. She discovered it a few days later when the dust had settled after her move-in day, and she started to grow accustomed to the foreign, bittersweet college life—accompanied by that silly little bird.
A piece of her family life, no matter how scattered they are, will cling to her until she decides to deposit the goose with the broken neck on the next unsuspecting member of the family.
It is now 2023, 21 years after that fated day at the bridal party when the glass bird flew into our lives. It has been a constant—a peculiar, volatile one—but a constant nonetheless, being one of the many ceaseless jokes that follow my family around.
