Without the keeper of the home

“Is this real, I mean has this really become what it is?” She pushed her way through the mounds of collected items scattered around what used to be the family home. The stale smell of dust and skin irritate her sinuses. She knew others couldn’t sense as strongly, but she could tell that what she was inhaling was not going to be good for her lungs. She quickly pulled the neck of her red jumper over her nose. She could smell her own perfume, what a relief, it was so much sweeter than the smell of mothballs. Sadly she looked around at what used to be such a happy room.

The clock, handmade by her younger brother, hung lifeless on the wall no attention had been given to it in the last six years. Her artwork, so proudly framed and mounted no longer visible from things stacked against it. The painting created by her baby sister, her Mother’s last Birthday present,  covered in dust and cobwebs. The photos of her own children lay hidden underneath a thick layer of papers and empty crisp packets. She took the photo frame in her hand papers fell to the floor. These images of her children, her Mother’s pride and joy, she couldn’t stand the thought of them just lying there thick with dust. She looked closely at the dust and saw that it was moving. Tiny little dust creatures moving around on the faces of her babies and she felt a deep sorrow at the loss of someone so special. The keeper of the home was no longer there.

She ventured off around the rest of the house each room the same or worse. Her bedroom as a child no longer had a floor. It was covered in the most ridiculous things. Odd old shoes that no one will ever wear. Dirty towels and old rags used and just left to go mouldy. A broken electrical fan, an old vacuum cleaner. Bags and bags of all sorts of useless things stacked from floor to ceiling. She could still see the evidence that it once was her room, however the hope of this place ever being a home again was sadly dying.

“What has caused this…how can it be put right?” She mumbles to herself, her jumper slipped and again she smelt the air that was polluted with grief, rejection, isolation and abandonment. She went back down the stairs carefully, worried she may trip on the clothes and other things left on the staircase.

She hears the key in the door, her Dad is home. She remembers the upset and fear she had as a child hearing him coming home from work. A visual of her quickly going to her room and putting on the heavy metal music to drown out her feelings of not being part of the family. She so wants to run back up the stairs, but where would she be running to. She takes a deep breath and gags at the smell.

“What are you doing here?” He says to her with no love in his voice at all. She was used to this her Dad always spoke to her this way, she knew that to him she was just the bloody nuisance. He had told her this all her life and she believed it.

“I have come to see you Dad, I was passing and I had my keys, I wanted to have a cup of tea in my home where I grew up. Can I help you clean Dad please, it’s gotten a bit out of hand hasn’t it?” She spoke quietly, afraid of his reaction but hoped he’d say yes, she had always hoped that one day her Dad would show her that he loved her.

“I DON’T WANT YOU THROWING MY THINGS AWAY!” He shouted just as he always had. “IT’S NONE OF YOUR BLOODY BUSINESS WHAT I DO IN MY OWN HOME, YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN THE SAME YOU BLOODY NUISANCE!”

She stood and took it just as she had for 40 years. She felt the tears behind her eyes and the pain in her heart. She swallowed it down, she knew that if she showed emotion he’d shout more. There was nothing she could do. She walked out the door with the photo album of her wedding day and the framed photos of her beautiful babies. She put the album on the bonnet of her car and got a wipe out of the glove compartment. She removed the moth shells from in between the pages tears ran down her cheeks. She wiped the dust mites off her babies faces smiled at the memory of her Mom kissing each photo as she polished. She wished she knew what her Mom would have done. She wished she knew how to get her Dad to listen to her heart hurting with his pain.

Even though she knew and understood how his Autistic behaviour had been effected with grieving. She failed to understand the hate he seemed to have for his first born. Maybe it was just that she was so like him and he really hates himself, maybe that is it… he projects his own self hate onto the person most like himself. Perhaps, but she will never know because he cannot explain. She sat in her car, started the engine and thanked God that her Mom was just who she was, her Mom had taught her basic living skills and how to always look to Jesus.

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