Occasionally out of the blue, a song will come on the radio, or shuffle on your iPod that seemingly catches you off track. It immediately puts a smile on your face, takes you back 15 years in an instant. To a place you knew and still know as one of the happiest times of your life. You close your eyes for a moment, standing face to the sun and let the memory sweep you off your feet, back in time, to that very moment.
I sit here, eyes closed and I can smell sandalwood incense mixed with the rush of ‘Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door’ Perfume. The beat starts slow…. “la la la la, la……” just acoustic Guitar and the soft sweet voice of Cat Stevens breaks in….. “Now that I’ve lost everything to you, you say you want to start something new……….” I hear her voice chime in as she enters from the other room in my minds’ eye I see it as if it were right now, feel the positive happy energy of a home created with love and smiles, happiness and a lot of sweat and tears.
She’s standing in the kitchen, the sunlight bouncing off of her bright blonde hair as if she were coming out of the sun itself. “Ohhh baby baby it’s a wild world” she grabs my hand and twirls me around “it’s hard to get by, just upon a smile”. Her eyes so bright when she looks at me I can’t help but laugh and then twirl her as she did me. As we dance, there in the spring afternoon… the windows open letting in the cool crisp air, it swirls in with the scent of her perfume and incense making a permanent mark in my heart, my mind and most importantly my soul.
“You know I’ve seen a lot of what the world can do”, she sings softly holding her hand across her heart with a look of intensity in her eyes. She always sang this song to me it wasn’t just a song for us, it was her message… through the art of a man so many didn’t understand directly to me, yet I wouldn’t realize that until she was gone…. “and it’s breaking my heart in two, cause I never want to see you sad girl…. Don’t be a bad girl!”…. “If you wanna leave take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there, just remember there’s a lot of bad and beware!.... ooh baby baby it’s a wild world……it’s hard to get by just upon a smile. Oh baby baby it’s a wild world and I’ll always remember you like a child girl (la la la mixed with piano) BABY I LOVE YOU!” (we would sing as loudly as possible)
By this time we are moving around the room like I used to imagine hippies did at Woodstock, eyes closed holding hands, swaying back and forth singing softly to one another dancing in and out of the smoky rays of sun coming through the windows with the bright spring colors following, as if they had joined our soul dance.
“I’ll always remember you, like a child girl……………. “ the song faded away just as softly as it had begun. Opening my eyes, I realize I’m not there, in that house with my mom, but for a minute I was. A small tear forms in the corner of my eye. Wiping it away and breathing in, sitting up straight in my chair, a tear falls involuntarily before I can catch it with my aged fingers, the fingers that are starting to look like hers, but with finger nails. I smile glancing inconspicuously into the reflection of the picture of her and I, checking to be sure my makeup wasn’t smeared where the small drop of emotion had escaped. It’s all good. I got to be 15 again, even if just for a moment, even if just in a day dream, a memory, She was here with me, memory or not I can still smell her and I can’t help but smile. I hear her in my voice sometimes, I see her reflection as I walk past a mirror. I try to avoid it mostly, it’s the only thing that makes the day bearable sometimes … just knowing that a huge part of me is just like her, it makes it easy not to miss her as much.
There is a little brown eyed girl sitting in school right now, she has her daddy’s eyes and nose, but her mommy’s smile and the same spark that runs in the eye of every woman in our family. It’s a fire. It burns deep, it’s strong. It’s what gets us through the tough days and lights us up on the great ones. It’s the god within us, there passed down from generation to generation to remind us when we do catch that glimpse, that spark, that fire………. To hold our head up, smile and keep on dancing!
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