by Julie Martin on Thursday, 14 July 2011 at 00:22
Returning to this place was hard, so much had happened here. As I drive up to the old house,
I can sense how different it feels. The front garden now over grown, thistles standing tall
waving at me in the gentle breeze, 'welcome home john it’s been a long time' they say. I can
still make out the stone path hidden amongst all the weeds.dad would spend hours in the
garden there was never a plant out of place, you could see the pride glowing from within the
flower beds.
I do not feel the same urgency walking up to the front door as I did the day I left. I turn
the handle. So may emotions run through me as I step inside? The walls lay bare with
reminders of where the pictures once sat. The wallpaper is hanging off the walls. A musty smell
is all that’s left to greet me. I leave the door slightly ajar. The sunlight streams through
illuminating part of the stair case. I can hear my footsteps on the wooden floor boards;
this was once covered in a patterned brown carpet,' it hides the dirt' my mother would say.
The sitting room is to the right of me. It seams smaller than I remember, still bright and the
light pores in from the big old sash windows, though bare with paint peeling off the wood,
I can see in my head the curtains that once surrounded them .The kitchens is still the same,
old yellow cupboards still sit in the place my farther put them, the glass is gone now. I run
my hand over the table. We would sit here for our meals or just talking to mum while she
busied herself with chores. Even the sink brings back a time my mother would lay me
across the wooden draining board , my head over the sink washing my hair. She used
to tell me that she would bath me in that sink to. I was fascinated with the stories she would tell.
My only regret is that she is no longer here to tell them. I wished I was still that little boy who
could feel his mother’s arms around him just because he could. Laughter would follow the
tickles she’d rain down on me. mum would chase me up the garden and round the bonfire until
we would collapse in to fits of giggles, I miss those days.
Nervously I stand at the bottom of the stair case, unsure if I should go up there. Feelings of
helplessness surround my entire being, mum would tell me to wait down stairs, she would come
back to me soon. I would hide under the stairs in amongst the coats and shoes, muffling out the
noise that was coming from above,
I was a teenager the last time I sat in hear, just 13. They had been quarrelling for what
seemed like hours, next I hurd a dull thud, then silence. My heart was pounding I thought it
would burst out of my chest at any second. I didn’t know if anyone knew I was hiding hear?
Mum knew, she will come get me, she always does?
