When they arrived home, Joyce was so glad to see that they kept the same house. She couldn’t imagine selling it, thinking of all the memories embedded inside it. Hope filled her heart that her home would help her to find the missing pieces of her memory.
As she entered her home, she saw that it was so tidy! There were no papers stuck on the refrigerator door: pictures with big happy faces and very long thin legs, the drawings her children used to give her as gifts. She ran into the baby’s room… no crib, no toys on the floor. She rushed to a drawer where she always kept drawings and big unreadable words drawn and written by her children and given to her by them as a gift or a surprise. She opened the drawer and saw that some of these precious papers were still there. She pressed them tight to her bosom, and two tears fell from her eyes.
“Are you alright Joyce?”
“Yes, Gabriel, I am fine. I just need some time to get used to the change in my life, our home… Do not worry, I feel fine, but I need some fresh air. Let’s go outside.”
Going to the backyard, they passed through the music room; many vases were there, and each vase was full of many flowers of every kind, color, and smell. One green vase was filled with nothing but red roses. She looked at Gabriel, he told her: “This one is from me, but all the other flowers are from the children. They are just very happy for your recovery and your coming home.”
Joyce looked around, amazed. There were balloons everywhere, declaring, “Welcome home,” “We love you,” and “Happy Mother’s Day.” she looked again at Gabriel, he reminded her: “Tomorrow… Tomorrow is Mother’s Day.”
“I came back just in time.” She smiled. “Thank you so much, my heart is very touched.” She continued walking toward the door. Arriving into the back yard, Joyce looked at the huge tree that she remembered as a small tree. She even remembered the day when Michael, Gabriel, and Christelle nailed four wooden steps on it. How much fun they had climbing on that tree and those steps.
“Where are the steps?” she asked.
“What, honey?” Gabriel answered.
“The steps the children nailed on the tree and used to climb on them,” she explained.
Gabriel smiled, closing his eyes as if trying to relive those happy memories. “Oh, those steps… Probably they fell down a while back; it has been many years, and I actually don’t remember what happened –”
“Look, Gabriel,” she interrupted him as she pointed up high to one thick branch. They looked at it and both laughed at the same time, for up there on the branch was the remains of one wooden step, all withered, with broken edges. But it was still there with few roots growing over it and keeping it in place.
“Now I believe that it has been twenty years…” Joyce declared jokingly, looking at his loving eyes.
He kissed her, still grateful that she was back with him, “Let’s go inside; it is getting chilly out here.” Putting his arm around her shoulders, he turned her toward their home.
***
The next day, at home, Joyce was sitting in her favorite chair, looking around her. Everything was so tidy and clean. She couldn’t help but wonder, where are the toys which are always scattered all over the floor? Michael’s trains, Gabriel’s airplanes, Christelle’s coloring books, Geanna’s dolls, and Carmel crawling all over the place? She knew that they were but memories now.
Everything around sounded so quiet… so calm. Where was the sound of the children’s laughter and the baby’s cries, the unending questions, the squabbles? It was so quiet now. Her hands had been so busy during the day; now they lay still in her lap. She had nothing to do; there were no little ones to discipline and no little fights to referee. Gabriel assured her that the children are very good and loving to each other as adults, and that she did a good job raising them. She had to trust him for now. She looked forward to getting to know her children again, even as she missed the children, who were so real in her mind… but who no longer existed. She lost twenty years of memories and she had to get used to that fact. The words of a poem written by Edgar A. Guest suddenly came to her mind:
“The laughter of children the old walls have known and the joy of it stays, though the babies have flown… The riches of life are not silver and gold. But fine sons and daughters when we are grown old.”
Gabriel came into the room, interrupting her reverie. He handed her a glass of champagne; they had always enjoyed drinking champagne together. “Salute,” he said, smiling while clinking his glass with hers.
She smiled back. “Cheers!” She watched the bubbles speeding up from the bottom of her long glass to disappear at the surface. Soft Italian music floated in the air, and she could smell the pizza that Gabriel was making. Today was Mother’s Day, and all the children were coming home for dinner. They would all eat dinner together just like the old days.
She was grateful to be back. She was overjoyed that she would get to know her children and be part of their lives as they have families of their own. Yet she couldn’t help but reflect on how blessed are the mothers who wake up every day to find their babies still babies and their children still children and ahead of them a day full of work, struggles, fights, laughter, screams, joy and tears, dinner time, story time, prayer time and then…bedtime.
She smiled, recalling an elderly lady telling her many years ago: “Joyce, you and Gabriel are living the most beautiful years of your life. I know it can get busy and tiresome but enjoy your children now… Enjoy every moment for they will grow so fast.”
And they did.
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