The Snowglobes

I’ve never been brave enough to come back. Never been able to hold my emotions together enough. Never been able to remember the happy memories of laughter and smiles…only regrets. But that phone call from the HOA explicitly informed me I had to take ownership of the house or sell it as it was about to collapse from lack of maintenance and was a sore sight for many of the complaining neighbors.

I pulled up to the driveway, hearing the same bump bump in my car as I drove up it, feeling the same quick bounce on my seat and lurch in my stomach that I was so used to and felt so many times. It made me sick feeling it again. Paint on the house was cracked and peeling. The roof was barely even a roof with tiles and bricks scattered on the ground. It’s only been two years. The house looks as if it’s been through twenty.

The same iron gate greeted me as I walked down the pathway to the front door. The same pair of large wooden doors, that for some reason, only open on one of the doors. The same little gap between the front step and the porch gate where we always slipped the key. And the key was still there.

My hands shook as I opened the door, remembering how I had to turn the key first the opposite way, then the correct way for the door to open smoothly. And when I walked in, a wave of deja vu of the sight and smell of the inside of the house hit me so hard, I nearly fell over. Why did the house still smell like them?

I couldn’t take in everything fast enough as I stared at the shoe shelves by the front door, the couch and TV right behind it, and the overfilled storage room to the left of the hallway. It was like they were here all these years, still making this place their home. Why could I still see us watching, laughing, and crying over TV shows and movies on the couch? Why could I still hear the sound of them karaoking every night, singing their lungs out, and not caring that they were off tune? Why could I still smell the delicious dishes they cooked together every night, laughing and enjoying the entire process working together?

I miss you, I mouthed the words, silently as I stood frozen by the bottom of the staircase. Twelve steps. I remembered. I climbed up them slowly, my fingers trailing on the dust-covered stair rail. And finally….my bedroom door. When I opened the door to my dimly lit room, I could suddenly see the younger me working on piles of homework on my desk, dancing by myself by the window as well as whispering and giggling with my friends on my bed during sleepovers.

But my room wasn’t exactly the same as I had left it two years ago. There was a small cardboard box in the middle, with my name in big black letters on it. The entire box was filled with snowglobes. Tears dripped silently as I remembered. Remembered how every single family trip we went on, I bought a snowglobe. China, Hawaii, Miami, Paris, Spain, all of it. And on top there was a slip of paper.

Thought you’d like to have these in your new apartment! Will visit you as soon as you’re settled. Love, Mom and Dad.

But, they never got to send the box to me. No, not before they died in that car accident. Aim for something more enigmatic: “The box never made it to the mail.”