The shelf in Lily's late father's room looked cleaner today. No dust, no clutter, and absolutely no sign of abandonment. The flower vase that hung above it seemed more alive, and the nativity scroll pinned on the far end of the wall appeared more pristine.
"Someone has been taking care of this room since we arrived," she thought quietly to herself.
She walked toward his orchid brown wardrobe and a wave of nostalgia immediately washed over her as she opened it slowly. Her father used to treat his wardrobe like a sacred treasury. All his important, and sometimes unimportant, documents lay there in their different compartments. His clothes always fit neatly on the hangers, while his light work tools and coverall never left the bottom layer.
She missed her father deeply. But the word "deeply" did not seem enough to capture how much her heart longed for his warm pats on her back whenever things went wrong. Even her arms missed the way he would twist them gently from behind whenever he wanted to prove he still had a bit of youthful strength. Standing in front of his wardrobe reminded her of his many little habits. His stylish way of walking toward it to retrieve an item, the loud guffaw whenever her mom asked if he would like to be buried alongside the wardrobe, and how quickly his mouth moved whenever he ate his favorite meal.
If you ever needed anything from him, he would say, "Oh dear, let me get it instead," just so you would not misplace or disorganize his items.
If he allowed you to get something from the wardrobe yourself, he would still remind you to keep it exactly the way you met it. He was such a keeper. An organized man. The most organized human she had ever come across in her entire life.
She breathed in slowly and reached for her family's oldest photo album lying on the last row of the shelf. No one had been in the room since their father passed last month, not until last week when she and her sister, Jasmine, travelled home to prepare for his burial. Even their mom who lived in there had not found the courage to step into his room to hold the items that connected them to him. She sat on the bed and opened the first page of the album. It was a picture of her dad and his late father. They looked so much alike that people often called them twins from different mothers but the same family tree.
"How nice that you both have returned to the ground," she said loudly.
"You sure do have your sense of humor intact, even in the most gloomy moments. You forgot to close the door, by the way," Jasmine said as she walked into the room and sat near her.
"This is the first time you've genuinely smiled since we arrived home. I've missed seeing it. Maybe I should keep my humour alive throughout our stay here."
"Lily? I think giving me the longest hug would help more. We don't need the dark jokes. I mean, we may never know who might not want us making them at such a sensitive time."
"Alright. Come here, Jas."
She wrapped her arms around her generously, running her fingers through Jasmine's soft brown hair.
Together, they echoed these familiar words,
"Family's the light that guides us.
Blessed be the ties that bind us."
They both smiled at each other after the hug.
"It's so cool that we still sing the lyrics of Miranda Lambert's Sweet By and By the same way we did when Dad first fell ill in 2016," Jasmine said.
"Right? Dad would be so proud of us. He always wanted his girls to be this strong in troubled times."
They flipped through the pages of the album while they looked through the photos of their family. The photographs captured their parents in their youth, their first family dinner, their graduation parties, their grandparents' anniversary, their mother's fortieth birthday, their father's baptism, and many other lovely moments. The pictures showed just how much time had passed. Both sisters felt their eyes filling with tears.
"Hold on," Jasmine said as she stood up and walked to their father's bedside drawer. She pulled out a rough piece of lined paper from a small brown envelope.
"Here. I found this while cleaning Dad's room two days ago. It's the first letter he wrote to Mom when he traveled offshore after their wedding."
Lily's eyes widened. She had always known her father to be a hopeless romantic through the love he showed their mother, but she had never come across any of his letters before. She began reading, and each word sounded like it came from a lover who longed to return home to his beloved every single day. Her eyes reached the bottom of the letter where it read,
"My darling Anny, if the lavenders lose their colour and the rose loses its fragrance, my love for you will remain like the promise of the rainbow and the scent of incense that fills the room. If your heart were the hardest mountain to climb, I would give everything just to reach it. Let this always be a reminder of my love for you. - Your sweetheart, Stewart."
"Oh my gosh. This is the loveliest thing I have ever read," she said, with her voice filled with sadness.
"Dad was completely devoted to Mom. He loved her dearly." Jasmine replied with confidence.
"We need to let her see this. I think it will make her less sad today and give her more strength to carry on until the burial is over."
Jasmine agreed and they walked into the living room where their mother sat reading a magazine with a cup of coffee beside her. She had always been more of a cinephile, but the loss of her husband had made her start doing some of the things he enjoyed, probably as a way of trying to feel closer to him in grief. They sat beside her on the couch and exchanged glances.
"Mom, we know you've read this a long time ago, but it wouldn't hurt to read it one more time," Jasmine said as she handed the letter to her.
Anny held the letter with care. The moment she looked at it, she recognized Stewart's handwriting. A tear slipped from her eyes as she began her own reading. Then another followed, and soon, it turned into a full blown weeping. Her daughters let her weep until she felt comfortable to speak to them.
She finally turned to them and spoke in a low tone.
"I won in life because of the love I shared with your father. Then he died while I was on a week long work trip. I thought I had lost the best part of me. But the memory of this proves that I lost nothing. Stewart's love remains evergreen, and I will carry it with me always."
The girls leaned closer and wrapped their arms around their mother. They remained in that close embrace for minutes without uttering a word. The comfort of this position held all three of them together. Their home no longer felt entirely like a place of mourning. Instead, it felt full of love, and of warm memories. The items they had rediscovered together made their grief less heavy, and nothing would ever replace this moment for them.
THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG!🤗
