Family, Love, Faith, and Hope

I was 11 again, late afternoon, making the familiar walk down the cobblestone street to the bakers with my four year old, clumsy brother clutching to my thumb. My uncomfortable, pregnant mother stayed home this time because the baby was shooting sharp pains into her side. She was told that the baby was to come any day which had made sense to me since she looked like she had a giant ball in her stomach. We picked up the warm, sweet bread my mother wanted for tonight’s meal and came home to her already setting the table for supper’s feast. I started helping her with the expensive plates my parents got for their wedding, then the elegant linens placed next to each plate to match the floral, embroidered tablecloth.

            Suddenly, I jolted awake to the piercing cry of reality from my four year old sister Rose in the next room. Three years ago, right after Rose’s first birthday, my mother passed away from an unknown disease with no cure. My father was one of the physicians at the local hospital, he was also my mother’s doctor. My mother’s pale, frail skin was in the hands of my father. How he coped with her sickness, I’m not sure, but somehow he would come home content and never sad. The night she died I can still remember her hazel eyes glistened up at mine, the last piece of herself that reminded me of how beautiful she was. Her pale pink lips were chapped and cracked telling me not to cry and that I had to be strong for my brother David and Rose. A drop of glistening sweat trickled down her burning face, my father gently wiped the drop from her face. David, fiddling with my mother’s gown strings, was curled up in a ball under the warmth of my mother’s arm in the hospital bed. Rose was sleeping soundly under her other arm. I knelt down beside the bed and slid my hand under hers and rested my head on top of our hands. My father was standing over us reading some of my mother’s favorite verses from the Bible. The nurse that cared for my mother came in and stated to us the bad news.

            I shut my eyes tightly and clapped my hands over my ears, trying to forget the memory. My father was working the night shift tonight, so I had to get up and tend to Rose. It was pitch dark but the walk to Rose’s room had become familiar. Ever since my mother passed, Rose wakes up in the middle of the night screaming. The only thing that will calm her is if she comes to sleep with me. I reached down to pick her warm body out of her blanket covered bed and brought her to mine. We crawl into my bed and I cradle her close to my chest and start to softly sing the song my mother always sang to me before bed;

How much do I love you?
I'll tell you no lie
How deep is the ocean?
How high is the sky?
How many times in a day
Do I think of you?
How many roses are
Sprinkled with dew?  

            The next morning I awoke to the sound of a rumbling truck making its way down the cold, empty street. Rose was still curled up on the edge of the bed under a heap of blankets. The blankets rolled off my chest as I sat up to stretch my slender pale arms. I peered down at my feet and found David sleeping at the end of my bed. Unbeknownst did I know that David had crawled in bed with us last night.I carefully slid out from under the blankets and stepped onto the chilly, hardwood floor. Recently, we moved into a slightly smaller apartment. We still all had our own rooms; everything had just been downsized. Our old apartment was one of the most luxurious apartments in Boston, but now with mother gone, father said there was no need for such a large apartment. Father also said that money was getting tight, and it would just be easier to live somewhere smaller. Realistically it was still a nice apartment, and we still needed Mary, our maid, to cook and clean for us. I slipped my pink slippers on before leaving my room. I waltzed down the spiral staircase to the kitchen where Mary was already making scrambled eggs. She was such a help to our family; personally, I don’t know what I would do without her.

            Spring had just begun and it was the weekend so there was no school for David and I. We decided, because it was still chilly, that we would go ice skating. I got Rose, David and myself all bundled up and ready to leave. A local pond had been made into an ice rink this winter, and it has attracted so many people. It was about two blocks away from our cozy apartment. We spent a couple long hours there and then started the journey home.