The Writing Mamas Daily Blog
Each day on the Writing Mamas Daily Blog, a different member will write about mothering.If you're a mom then you've said these words, you've made these observations and you've lived these situations - 24/7.
And for that, you are a goddess.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Not the Same
My husband and 3-year-old son are asleep on the Cal King in my childhood bedroom.
The walls are still the pale blue I chose as a sixteen-year-old. The tidal blue plush carpeting is also the same, holding years of footprints. Now, stacks of children’s books replace high school textbooks.
Our move back to my parents’ house was supposed to be temporary. That was three years ago. We moved in to get help from my parents with our so son so we could sleep.
Two weeks later, my father died.
In my mind it will always be because he fell down the stairs. But it was the heart attack that caused the fall. I don’t want to leave. I need to hold the memories, to walk up and down the spiral staircase, leave the chandelier lights on, kiss the framed portrait of my father that rests on the piano goodnight.
It is 9:30 p.m. and this is my time to think. The house is dark. I turn on the chandelier and glance over the balcony at the black and white portrait of my dad. I walk into my parents’ bedroom. My mom is away for three nights and the emptiness of our vast house scares me. I turn on the light in her bedroom. Their bedroom.
I see the rocking horse my father built for me on top of the Persian carpet. This will be my last time living in this house. I sit on the Persian carpet and stare at a framed photograph of clouds my mother has left on the ground. It looks like Tahoe at sunset; the clouds are soft, protective. Without my dad, the clouds that catch me, cushion me, are gone. My dad, the man who looked like God, is gone. As a father and psychiatrist, he could hold light and dark.
Without him, the world is less secure.
On my way out of the room I pass my parents’ bathroom with the movie star lights, a photograph of my little sister staring at a stuffed owl, my father’s electric toothbrush still charging as if to say we are the same, still secure with Dad here.
By Ariana Amini
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The walls are still the pale blue I chose as a sixteen-year-old. The tidal blue plush carpeting is also the same, holding years of footprints. Now, stacks of children’s books replace high school textbooks.
Our move back to my parents’ house was supposed to be temporary. That was three years ago. We moved in to get help from my parents with our so son so we could sleep.
Two weeks later, my father died.
In my mind it will always be because he fell down the stairs. But it was the heart attack that caused the fall. I don’t want to leave. I need to hold the memories, to walk up and down the spiral staircase, leave the chandelier lights on, kiss the framed portrait of my father that rests on the piano goodnight.
It is 9:30 p.m. and this is my time to think. The house is dark. I turn on the chandelier and glance over the balcony at the black and white portrait of my dad. I walk into my parents’ bedroom. My mom is away for three nights and the emptiness of our vast house scares me. I turn on the light in her bedroom. Their bedroom.
I see the rocking horse my father built for me on top of the Persian carpet. This will be my last time living in this house. I sit on the Persian carpet and stare at a framed photograph of clouds my mother has left on the ground. It looks like Tahoe at sunset; the clouds are soft, protective. Without my dad, the clouds that catch me, cushion me, are gone. My dad, the man who looked like God, is gone. As a father and psychiatrist, he could hold light and dark.
Without him, the world is less secure.
On my way out of the room I pass my parents’ bathroom with the movie star lights, a photograph of my little sister staring at a stuffed owl, my father’s electric toothbrush still charging as if to say we are the same, still secure with Dad here.
By Ariana Amini
Labels: Ariana Amini
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