I Can Still Remeber

I am taking a Creative Writing class and my lovely teacher told us to write a Creative Non-Fiction story over an early memory. This is what I chose...

     It all happened so quickly, no one would have ever seen it coming. I can still remember the ride home from school, everything was so normal. Normal except that mother had been the one to pick me up that evening rather than grandpa. Mother was working as a hair stylist at the time and would often work late, grandpa was usually the one to pick me up and watch me until she would get off. I remember walking into our small baby blue house. It wasn’t much with its cracked and broken siding, chipped paint, and the yard littered with toys, but it was very much home. However, one detailed memory stood out brighter than all the others.

     I had just changed out of my school clothes and been sitting in the living room to begin working on writing my words. Ten times each and a sentence using each of the words correctly, that was the drill. I was a really bad speller growing up and reading was a constant battle, so we hoped that this daily routine would help me to finally get them down. The white leather couch was cold against my little back and my legs dangled in the air, too short to reach the ground. My mom was just about to go cook dinner when the call came. The phone seemed to cry out in pain as if it knew that this was only the beginning of our great loss. My mother who always stood strong dropped to the floor in hysterical sobs and everyone jumped to their feet, completely oblivious to the horrors yet to come. I rushed to my mother's side to comfort her and ask her what has happened. That is when everything stopped. The air around me stood frozen, my heart seemed to grow very silent, even time didn't dare move.  The pain tore through the silence like a hurricane, leaving everyone dumb struck and I felt as the world was swept out from under our feet. My grandfather, my best friend, had pasted that afternoon.

     They wouldn't let me go see him that night though I persisted and begged for them to take me. They just kept telling me that it was better that I not see him that way, but they didn't understand. I was not the most liked child, I was strange and didn't quite fit in at school. Grandpa had been the only person I had that listened, encouraged, and really spent a whole lot of time with me. I could always rely on him, but now he was gone. It was a few days before they let me go to his house and I remember it as if it was yesterday.

     The stone pathway leading toward the front door looked like a treacherous mountain path. I took the stones two at a time, making my way toward the great dark wooden door. I felt the difference as I stepped through the threshold of the door, feeling strangely out of place and as if the home was foreign. The stone entryway was newly polished and you could tell that the house had been cleaned, it still looked familiar and even smelt familiar, like home. As I moved farther into the house I caught the soft sent of bleach in the air that made me oddly sick to my stomach. Though it had been a week or so since he passed, the home still held his energy. I felt the familiar pull toward the cream carpeted living room, half expecting to find him there sprawled out upon the couch watching, The Wheel of Fortune, ever so intently. Tears swelled in my eyes, threatening to expose my lack of composure. I tried my best to stay strong and happy for my mother and aunts. They needed me to be the one who held it together. I moved to the back wall, completely lined with windows and glass doors. So many memories lay within the trees and pond displayed through the think lightly tented glass. Like the time when I directly disobeyed my grandfather and mother and played on the edge of the pond and despite their parental warning, I had fallen in. The many adventures that took place there. I turned away from the back yard and headed down the long hallway that led to the bedrooms. It was darker then I remembered and the walls seems closer together as if a single wrong move could cause them to collapse into nothing. I pasted my room, Cackys room, and Margrets room know that they held nothing of interest to me at the moment.

     There at the end of the hall stood your door tall and white. It seemed to call to me but held a warning of its own that at the time I did not understand. I hesitated with my hand gently placed upon the cold silver knob, with a deep steading breath I push the door open. I step inside, each step harder than the one before. I then stood within his room, surrounded by his things. The room was large and the walls and carpet where a soft white. The closet to my left was open, revealing his shirts hung nicely and shoes place neatly in a row. The bed laid before me neat and perfectly made. If you hadn't known better you would have thought it hadn't been touched for days. However when I approached the bed a picture of my grandfather laid careful upon the soft comforter. My heart dropped and I felt my loss  of control building. I backed away quickly closing my eyes and trying to fight the tears but there was no use. The perfect control I had held for the past week was gone, as gone as my grandfather who would never be able to hug me and tell me everything will be ok, never be able to see me go to prom and actually have a date, never see me one day be married to a man who cares for me as deeply has he did and more. My emotions barreled in not caring of the consequences. My feet moved fast as I dashed from the house, longing to be anywhere but here. I could be in a place I had seen his smile, felt his hug, heard his laugh. I needed to breath, I needed air. My mother found me under the large oak tree in the front yard, sobbing uncontrollably, my carefree attitude, and unbelievable strength gone. For the first time since that night my mother saw my true pain and she took her turn to comfort me. They never had me return to the house and I never asked to return.

     It has been several years since that awful day had come. I have noticed how the memories of you have begun slipping from my mind or how that have become as blurred as if looking upon through a foggy lens. This realization terrifies me for once they are gone, you will truly be out of my reach and lost to me. Until the day when I can finally rejoin you. Until then however, I will hold onto the memories that I can retain. Hold onto them as a child clings to their favorite blanket, refusing to every let go.