I Am Feeling Nostalgic
I just made some chai over the stove.
.
.
I just really wanted to sit down with mum and chat about her 90's days. I offered her a cup of chai, and showed her old pictures that my aunt sent me, and ask her to bring out her wedding album so we could look at the pictures once more, after many, many years.
But she wasn't amused. Maybe we don't have that connection anymore. I wanted the same response from her as she used to give us when we were children: springing to her feet to get the album out, and sitting herself down cross-legged on the carpet, her three bees converging to her sides in giggly cuddles, ready to enjoy the pictures again.
She would point at different people and tell us their stories. She'd tell us about strong,self-made women, who killed with both their looks and their accomplishments. She'd tell us dramatic love stories, and about betrayals, tragedies and heart breaks. She would talk about her mother, a tall lady, with broad shoulders and a fiery passion for educating her children. She had survived a massacre in her childhood that had stolen half her family from her, and was a trained huntress by seventeen. She was fierce and intimidating to the world, but the softest mother to her children. In [i]this[/i] picture, my nana is glowing... In [i]that[/i] one though, she has fallen ill.
Mum could have gone on and on about the details.
Not this time.
This time, her frail voice and cold reply only suggested a halt to our conversation. Her chai was finished by the time she muttered her dismissive response to my request, and she left the room to rinse her cup. I looked down at my own chai, still untouched.
.
.
I just really wanted to sit down with mum and chat about her 90's days. I offered her a cup of chai, and showed her old pictures that my aunt sent me, and ask her to bring out her wedding album so we could look at the pictures once more, after many, many years.
But she wasn't amused. Maybe we don't have that connection anymore. I wanted the same response from her as she used to give us when we were children: springing to her feet to get the album out, and sitting herself down cross-legged on the carpet, her three bees converging to her sides in giggly cuddles, ready to enjoy the pictures again.
She would point at different people and tell us their stories. She'd tell us about strong,self-made women, who killed with both their looks and their accomplishments. She'd tell us dramatic love stories, and about betrayals, tragedies and heart breaks. She would talk about her mother, a tall lady, with broad shoulders and a fiery passion for educating her children. She had survived a massacre in her childhood that had stolen half her family from her, and was a trained huntress by seventeen. She was fierce and intimidating to the world, but the softest mother to her children. In [i]this[/i] picture, my nana is glowing... In [i]that[/i] one though, she has fallen ill.
Mum could have gone on and on about the details.
Not this time.
This time, her frail voice and cold reply only suggested a halt to our conversation. Her chai was finished by the time she muttered her dismissive response to my request, and she left the room to rinse her cup. I looked down at my own chai, still untouched.
