5043-B

I still think about the old place. That dim, musty apartment which once provided shelter to my mother. She quite unwillingly traded it for a dim, musty rehab center, where she struggles daily through dressing changes and the fears that prevent her from literally taking the next steps toward her recovery.

That old place was also my home, for nearly 10 years. It became famiiar, comforting, but it also represented something so lonely and sad. While my mother was there, there was life: piano playing, a siging parakeet, the din of TV Land. It went on for years, semmingly never to end. I slept there, sweated out lots of school assignments there, exercised there, and spent many a solitary time wondering out loud about my life. Little sunlight penetrated the place and it always felt as if time had stopped, roughly 30 years ago.

After my mother was admitted to the hospital, I remained there for nearly 5 months. Never a sadder time. All the memories, and the neglect. When I tried to prepare the place for the next tenant, well, years of dirt and apathy was revealed. This was a tangible piece of what happened to my mother. As mountains of artifacts filled the living room, I still talked to the walls. As the time drew nigh, I asked the apartment to remember my lovely mother, the sweet little parakeet who spent many hours alone in the dark while my mother helped my grandmother in 5063-C. It was time to leave.

So now, closing in on the anniversary of my departure from Cresthaven, I still thonk of that sad place. My grandmother still lives across the lot from where my mother was. The apt. appears empty. What goes on inside of 5043-B? Do ghosts whisper in the humid darkness? In the wee hours, can the chirp of the long deceased sweet little canary be discerned? Does the ancient furniture breathe under years of dust? I wonder. Every abode that has stood for any amount of time has history, much of it lost to time. As I sit in my lovely apartment of now, I still salute the dreary past, still think on it. But it's time to breathe, time to embrace the light.

That goes for you too, mom.

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