I Wish My Mom Couldsee Her Grandchildren Again

Memories chimera wrapped, and stacked in cardboard boxes accomplish the ceiling of my 10×10 foot storage unit. Half a dozen previously mothered infant dolls lay naked head to human foot in box number 55. Number 32 holds Mystic Force, SPD, and Jungle Fury Power Rangers; 4inch plastic people that magically captivate the mind of a iii-year-quondam.

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I piece open up the multilayered tape that contains the contents of box number ane. My grandmotherʼs purse that I gave her on her birthday the year she died, lays on top of souvenirs from the past. I option upward the bag and concur information technology close. The faint odour of jasmine still lingers on the blackness sheet.  My centre skips a beat as I breathe in her ephemeral aroma and go on to unearth tarnished rosary chaplet, kid leather gloves yellowed from historic period, and silk scarves brought dorsum as gifts from Italyʼs, San Lorenzo Marketplace. All things that she cherished and I carefully packed away 14 years ago when she died.

I find a dark-brown, nondescript, 6×six inch box within the box. I donʼt need to open up it to know what information technology is, but like a moth fatigued to a flame, I exercise. As I pull the top off and expose its contents subconscious under tissue paper, are two, 12 inch, anecdote-brown braids of hair. The carefully braided strands are held together by safety bands, meticulously replaced over the years.

They are the braids of a 16-year-former girl. They are the nearly prized possessions of my grandmother. They are the braids of her girl who died from breast cancer at age 45. They are the braids of my female parent.

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I hold them in my hand. They are a past I didnʼt know, that was held onto, and never let go of. They are a trophy of my grandmotherʼs grief, a abiding reminder that no mother should always have to endure the hurting of burying her own child. The weight of their silky, soft coolness nestled in my palms feels too heavy for me to hold, and so I return them to their box and set it aside.

Silent tears turn into sobs, every bit I am overcome with my own grief. I imagine how my mother would have marveled in the beauty, the absolute perfection of her grandchildren, if she hadnʼt died when I was only 10. I imagine her holding them tightly to her breast, her eyes transfixed on the tops of their shine, perfectly round heads.

She sings her favorite Barry Manilow songs to them in her full alto voice. They wear sweaters she knit and jumpers she sewed. She sits at their dance recitals, front and center, smiling and lightheaded with pride. The show ends, they accept their bows, run off the phase and into her arms. The arms that never scold or await them to be anything more than who they are, her grand babies. Fourth dimension doesnʼt allow her to hold them for long, because with each passing infinitesimal they grow. They grow taller than her, stronger than her, but they would e'er be her grandchildren.

Surrounded by 59 boxes, I realize I have entombed the childhood of my children. Like the braids, I take packed away things I thought were too precious to let become of, their awards for participation, ticket stubs from memorable outings: metro rides and pic stubs included. In my mind the ordinary is extraordinary and proof of our experiences deserved to be packed away and kept for eternity or at least until someone else has plenty emotional detachment to part with them.

Every twenty-four hour period my son Nic grows a smidgen taller and his voice deepens. He is nearly 15 and no longer has time to sit down in a sea of Lego, creating parallel universes; he has homework, dance team, and socializing.

The red roof wooden house, that Marlena, my almost 17-year-sometime high school senior, scripted her miniature dollies' lives in, sits vacant. The family downsized to a shoebox.

Marlena, with her poise and calm, cool collectiveness seems more like a xx-year-erstwhile. She is also busy, living the life of a teenager with Snapchat, Instagram, AP classes, lifeguarding, swim, and college applications.

They are working towards a future, while I grapple with letting go of the past. I could swear it was simply last nighttime they were snuggled upward next to me in bed, wide-eyed as I read aloud the The Magic Tree House Adventures of Jack and Annie. I never thought sleepless nights with helicopter arms and legs fighting for space, the tedium of buckling car seats with back rearing toddlers, or the communal bathroom trips would ever end. And I never would accept imagined my missing it all so much.

I tuck the box with my motherʼs 68-yr-sometime braids under my arm, lock the storage unit of measurement and brand my way to the car i footstep at a time.

Tomorrow Iʼll be back for the dollhouse.

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Suzanne Skrabak has swum in the Amazon, stood on both sides of the Berlin Wall, and lord's day bathed on the beach with Blueish-Footed Boobies. She is a native Californian, built-in in Hollywood to a Colombian immigrant and a Windy-City female parent, just she'd like to call up of herself every bit 100% Gypsy. She survived a cleaved cervix that left her paralyzed for iii months, 2 years in the Peace Corps, and is working on her 17th twelvemonth of motherhood which is by far her favorite adventure. When she is not being serenaded by her guitar wielding hubby or telling stories to her ii amazing teens, she writes and occasionally takes the phase. She has told stories at The Story Salon, Story Time and Listen to Your Mother in Burbank, CA. This Nov she will exist sharing a story for a new bear witness chosen Diversity at the Colony Theatre.

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Source: https://grownandflown.com/wish-mom-would-have-known-grandchildren/

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