In my life I have moved with my family several times, as gypsies we have moved from place to place, adapting to the environment and new people. New transportation routes, new places to shop and new schools. We have gotten to know in this way some areas of the city, neighborhoods and urbanization, houses and apartments, in which we have spent years of our lives.
This last move was quite nostalgic because this was our place for several years, and we had already got used to being here, and we thought that this was the definitive one, but in life there is nothing definitive and the situation can change without us having control over what happens and overnight it became necessary to look for another space, a house or an apartment to make our niche again.
But this time there was a big difference and that is that the family members were not all present and from seven we became three, living in this place where memories had been accumulating over the years. The sons were growing up and stopped being children, we, the parents, got older older and stopped being young and in this natural process of life, some things were no longer used and were stored in closets, boxes and bags. The children's books remained on the shelves of the library, filling with dust as it happens when they are not used, only from time to time their pages were opened by hands in search of stories and their letters were read in a fleeting moment, to be put back in their place.
The toys that once lay scattered on the floor for most of the day, dolls, little trains, balls, a gray castle with its, knights, horses, dragons, princesses and kings, waiting for children to sit down and bring them to life, were now in a trunk abandoned in a dark and lonely place.
The time to pick up and clean this place that was once a home came, it could wait no longer. Piled up in the living room, I placed the things with the help of my daughters.
"Mommy, I'm going to take this box with the board games in it", showing me a box with games of ludo, memory, the return to Venezuela, playing cards, suspicion and others that we used to play in the evenings and holidays when we were all together as a family,
"Of course, my daughter, these games are for the whole family and for all ages".
Some things would remain part of the family, others would go to those who could use and love them, others would be sold and some would end up in the trash. Separating and classifying in groups was a task that took us a few days, there are so many things that are stored in life and in this process memories come back. That little box with necklaces and earrings that the girls kept in their drawers. Rereading Mother's Day letters and cards with crayon and pencil drawings at school and Christmas. The school uniform flannels lined with the signatures of friends when they finished their studies.
The kitchen was the last to be cleaned, a lot of objects that I didn't use, from spoons to a dough crusher and a useless blender. It was hard to decide what to keep, nostalgia overwhelmed me in those moments, I wanted to take everything.
But practicality overcame emotions and I decided to keep those things I was going to use and the memories of my children, they will follow me wherever I go. At some point, they will be able to return, and they will be waiting for them here.
Before leaving that place that was clean and without a trace that we had lived there, except for some marks on the wall in the room that was my daughters', which I did not want to erase, with which they were measuring their growth and a wall in the living room next to a library that was there when we arrived, which we painted pink one year-end and wrote some words of welcome to the new year: health, prosperity, travel, music, studies, family and so on until we filled it with our wishes. I looked out onto the balcony before I left, and there I said goodbye to that beloved mountain that I saw every morning when I woke up and every night when I went to bed.
"I am going to miss you, I said to your clouds and your sky", and I left through that door that I would never open again. A new stage in our lives was beginning in another place.
Before leaving, I took a last look at the kitchen and even when we had picked up the plants that we had planted in pots in the windows, I realized that there in a little pot there was a plant with small leaves and orange flowers, that I had not planted but had grown from the ground, in what once was a mint plant, and that I watered every morning. I looked at her, and it was as if she was telling me
"You're going to leave me here abandoned, I'm going to die if you do that".
"That's right, I can't do it, I'm not going to leave you",
I went back down the hallway, walked to the side of the brown kitchen cabinets, got to the multicolored glass window, took the plant and went out, it was the last thing I did in that place.
Thank you for reading this nonfiction story in The Ink well's Creative Nonfiction Prompt #29.
The translation was done at www.deepl.com