This wonderful place will remain in my brain until my days grow short. My memories come back and embrace me, just how she did, with warmth and comfort. I step through the door frame onto a old rug, however my shoe left no print behind. For thousands of shoe prints were planted before me. The faded scent of her perfume mixed with his mouth wash create a lasting imprint upon my senses. It seems that only yesterday I was here learning more about their life. A life so different from mine, it seemed like a fantasy. The ragged blue recliner, was a place for story telling. Whether it was to far places of his imagination or far places of her ancestors in Greece, the stories seemed to sink into each fold and fiber in that comfy chair. Aged pictures hanging by a string, of simpler times. Happier times. The carpet, like the rug, is worn of foot steps, and a step back into my Halcyon days I remember my first acting role from a child’s story book. I did not know how to read at the time, the words seemed to flow like water down a stream. Through the archway, linoleum crackles under my soles in the kitchen. I remember how many times I would dunk my oreos and pray that I did not drop them in the depths of my sippy cup. With each step I take more wonderful memories come back to me. The long card games with her and watching birds become refreshed from his kindness. The kindness that they both had taught me to give when others I loved were sad.

But, saddness had found its way into my life, again. With this same apartment. Seeing him in hospice brought memories flooding back. My desperation after her passing. Looking back, I was innocent and so much like a child. Longing for a miracle, for her to get better. And knowing that now he could not. It is truly saddening when someone you held so close to your heart, could leave by natures hand. I question where natures kindness was. A loss is hard, and being a witness to people you loved and thought were immortal grow weak is terrifying. Tears find there way into my vision and fill all I see with a gentle haze. Soon a gentle haze turns to complete darkness, for I cannot help but cry. A familiar hand rubs my back, I seem to colapse into my mother’s arms. I am a child once more. “Remember how was before, telling stories and watching Charlie Chaplin films. He loved you so much.” I wipe away my tears as a windsheild does rain drops. Unfortunately, like Arizona monsoons, my tears continued to fall.

The cabinets that were once full of plastic bowls and plates, it now lay empty with only the lone dust bunny in the corner. Left only to cower until being vacuumed up like the rest of its kind. Boxes consume the apartment. Some are filled to the brim with vintage trinckets and packing material, while other items are being looked at as if they were on trial, whether it should be kept or thrown out. “What about this? Well, I really liked it. I suppose I’ll take it.” It was more of an auction than just clearing it out. Tingle-lingle-ling as I pick up an antique porcelain bell with an illuminating red cardinal on it. Remembering how he would tell me of the fragile nature it had. It now lay next to a coyote, above some newspaper wrapped glasses, within a box coming home with us. The weight of the frames were lifted from the nails in the wall. An outline of pictures that were taken off lingered behind. Dust clothed the walls that I would constantly watch when I could not sleep at night. The pull-out couch had been stripped and cleaned. The interior of his desk was in a box somewhere between the trinkets and the door. His bookshelves were finally being cleared out after so many years. His memoirs and photo albums lined up next to each other as if they were soldiers, being called to attention. One by one, they are put into boxes. Their next mission is to be gone through and read. The stories within those pages live on, as does his legacy. I go into their old room down the hall. The dusty laundry room and the porciline-filled bathroom pass by on my left.

I enter and I see my father holding an 80’s style trench coat. I cannot help but release a slight giggle. That giggle grows into thunderous laughter filling the apartment. Noticing everything that he had kept from before and until this point was amusing. The many handchiefs and the plenty of socks had taken up more space than some other clothes that actually needed the room. I do not fear that any memory I have now will cause saddness, because joy has overcome every inch of my heart. I know that they are untroubled and in paradise together. At last our boxes jam their way into our mini-van however the surfboard that is normally atop it, is missing, furniture takes its place. Needless to say, people were still looking at the top of our car with couriosity. Crammed in the backseat among boxes, thoughts rush through my mind, one million miles per hour. A realization that my sister and I were their only grandchildren. In ones life, people wait for moments that could be there and gone in a blink of an eye. Moments that could change something so simple to someone not being able to share life with us on earth. All the way back home, I can imagine that my grandfather is being embraced by my grandmother as they had done in the apartment before. And I know, full well, that one day I will have to leave grandchildren of my own. And on that bittersweet day, I will see my grandparents again with joy in their eyes.