The first cut is always the hardest. I hesitate, I scratch the surface, I knick the first few layers feeling the sting in my eyes as they start to water. This feeling is only a hint of what’s truly coming next. Soon enough it will flow. Maybe this time it won’t stop. Maybe my prayer for absence will be answered and my heart will stop what my brain can’t.
This place is all that remains of an entire life. Figuratively and literally as her ashes sit on the top shelf, waiting to be joined by those of my living father when he dies. I am the caretaker, I am the one. The job has been left in my capable hands. This is her room, this is the place she took her last breath. The last place her voice echoed out into the world. The last place her crappy eyes strained to read Science and Health. The last place my father held her hand. The last place I gave her a hug. The last place my sister had a long conversation with my mom.
This house was hers. My father may have thought he had an influence on the way things were, but it was easy enough to see that this was not the case. His influence was limited. Paul’s hands picked up shells and interestingly balanced stones from the beach. They rested on window sills around the house, on bookshelves and on banisters here and there. They rested there because my mom knew he enjoyed the ocean as much as she did, enjoyed their time together at the edge of any given continent. The stones and shells are gone, have been for years.
Physical reminders of their love, no matter how insignificant filled this house. I was always aware of that. We never had anything very expensive in this house, but everything meant something to someone.
It’s getting harder to remember the way our house was laid out. Filled with so much foreign clutter for so long after she died, after a couple of years I started to have trouble untangling the images in my head. Things started changing when my sister and I moved out for college. New curtains here and there, a few new dishes. Not a lot, not really much at all. My room was still my room. Naomi’s was still Naomi’s room. The cupboards were still filled in exactly the same order. Teas over the sink, cereal in the first door on the right. Microwave on the white cabinet in front of the horrible oven.
I will never fully appreciate how good my mom’s cooking was. Now that I have a full understanding of just how bad the oven is, I understand a bit better… I feel the pain of that oven but I have lost my taste memory. I remember watching people try my mother’s food, her baking especially, and seeing their faces light up. Critics, fools, people who aren’t in to food.. they all lit up. How she made dishes that built her reputation as a baker and cook using that unpredictable and moody beast of an oven is beyond me. Perhaps the ovens she used growing up were even worse. She complained about it from time to time, but she managed. She did more than manage, she kicked ass with that thing. I can’t remember how anything but her turkey tasted. I remember the pies we made together, but they don’t sell the berries we used in Oregon so I can’t remind myself of how the crust tasted with the juices very easily. Her turkey I know how to make, I know the secrets. I should have paid more attention though, to everything else. The magic of linzer square tortes and pepper cookies may be forever lost now that she’s gone. I have the recipe cards but no memory of which direction to stir things or exactly when to add the egg.
The big hanging cabinetry that hung over the island and breakfast bar, obscuring light and views, blocking communication between kitchen and dining room, is gone. You can now stand in the kitchen and both see the dining room and feel the morning light sneak in through the front windows. People can stand or sit in different places and still talk. If we wanted to talk we had to be all in the tiny kitchen at once. When we made pies together we were always close. Very close. I remember the way it felt bouncing into each other as we pivoted around looking for egg beaters, measuring cups and spatulas. I got rid of hundreds of dishes from 3 generations of my family to make that change.
The dishes never meant much to me. Given that no family claimed them tells me that nobody else cared for them either. I wouldn’t mind a soft hand on top of my head as I mix batter though. That I miss. Or her arms around my shoulders and she showed me the proper way to kneed a given kind of dough.
Nobody claimed much of anything to be honest. Small things, here and there, but nothing much. It was me who ended up with a house full of objects and memories. Whether I wanted them or not.
I sometimes wonder if my dad knew that I would be able to handle this, that I would turn this whole experience into strength. That I would take my time and let it take me, embracing every change it brought, no matter how difficult it may turn out to be. He said he wanted to keep the house in the family, but he did not himself want anything to do with it. In fact, he found comfort thousands of miles away. Not that I blame him, but I feel I was last person on earth who was ready for a house.
Back to the room…
This is the last place in the house I haven’t changed in any way. The room was always a mystery to me. I’d go in there from time to time to snag handkerchiefs from my dad’s dresser. I always had a stuffy nose as a kid. Asthma too, but I didn’t know about that until just a few years ago. Explains a lot. But I digress.. their room was always a little scary to me. Off limits without really being defined that way. It was grown up stuff in there, stuff that both bored and intrigued me at the same time. Books, strange clothes with buttons up the front and things were not only clean, they were organized. It was dark too. North facing with tiny windows. Nice in the summer but a bit scary in winter.
I’m weeks into a project that should only have taken weekends. Part of it is my body not being able to handle all that time bent over blanks of bamboo with a nail gun, part of it is hesitation, procrastination and downright sadness. I’m almost done. I could cut bamboo and hammer planks enough to finish the place in a couple of days, but it’s still hard. The room is blue now, not white. The window trim is white rather than black. The ceiling is white rather than exposed fir. The ceiling is, in fact, due to be sliced open for skylights next summer. The room doesn’t feel the same. It’s not the same. And now I’m wondering if I still belong here.