1 minute read
Without Saying Good-Bye
It is strange how I can walk in and out of particular memories that I hold onto, but not just before or just after them. And after all these years, the truth is that I’m not sure I understand what happened in some, especially this one that I want to share. They had left me all alone in my grandparents’ apartment. To go to the cemetery, they said. They told me that my grandmother had died and was to be buried. But that I was ‘too young’ to go, that ‘it was not a place for me’. That’s how I remember it. Years later, my older sister said she was with me, but I only remember being alone. It was so very quiet. I was only five and didn’t understand what they meant.
I walked through their apartment looking for my grandmother, for traces of her, knowing she would come back soon. I sensed that she was still there, I smelled her perfume. She never would have left me without saying good-bye. No, not without a big hug, her warm laugh, a kiss, and a ‘I love you’. No, never.
