The best childhood memory
A rainy, gray and cold day what better to do then sit down and drink a warm cup of tea. Feel the heat of the steam, see the spices spreading their color and taste through the clear water. Never consistent but moving with grace and patience, a satisfying thing to see. Removing the tea back and reading the question that’s on the label. Yeah, that really is a thing where I live. There is a question about life on every tea bag label. I love reading them and answering them for myself or asking others what their answer would be.
Today’s question was about childhood, the time where we created a vision on the earth and the only thing we had to worry about was what’s for dinner tonight and do I like that or not. That wasn’t the question though. The question goes like this:
“What’s your best childhood memory?”
And that made me think. What actually is my best childhood memory?
There is a lot actually but most of them I can’t remember completely. They are small part of a bigger story and I can’t seem to fill in the missing pieces. But there is one memory I wanna share, one that is sad but beautiful. One that has shaped me as a person and is part of a bigger story that I will carry with me my entire life.
It is the memory of my uncle who passed away years ago. But most of all the memory of saying goodbye to him. That moment was one of the hardest moments of my life so far. But at the same time it warmed my heart, it allowed me to think of life as if it might end tomorrow. You can choose to live your life as though it is negative and bad or you can choose to live your life as a positive event and you are blessed to live it. I will explain to you why this memory of my uncle is so special to me.
The moment I heard that my uncle would die and that I had to say goodbye to him I burst into tears. My parents allowed me to cry and to feel what I had to feel. A few days later I sat on the side of his bed, looking at him not understanding the pain he must have been going through. All we did was talk. Talk about the memories we made, all the laughs, the cries, the scars we got over the years, the wrinkles that got deeper, the hair that got more gray and the love that only got bigger by the day.
We talked about how my uncle met my aunt and how they fell in love. The one thing I remember from that moment is the look on their faces. That sparkle in their eyes that looked like the millions of stars right above our heads. The way my uncle grabbed her hand and held in tight never wanting to let it go. As we talked about this love tears started rolling down their faces. Tears I had never seen in my life because they weren’t just tears of sadness. No, they were way more than that. They were tears of happiness, joy, love but at the same time heartbreak, grief and sadness. A combination that to this day still makes me cry. Because seeing two people loving each other so much at the end of their physical life together is a moment of pure joy. Even though death is a sad thing, we didn’t focus on that sadness. All I could see and feel was an amount of love that I have never felt in my life before or after that moment.
All the moments we had had together flashed before my eyes and one by one we talked about them. From the first moment we met, the memories I can’t remember. Telling me how they were there for me when I was just a little baby. Taking care of me just like my parents did. To the memory of me and my uncle playing a game of backgammon in the hot warm sun, the sound of crickets and leaves blowing in the wind. I realized how much of my life till that point I had spent with this incredible soul. At every memory we shared we shed a tear, one that was so intense, so pure that you couldn’t stop. The whole world around you got blurry because of the tears forming in your eyes. After some time my uncle asked me and my sister to lay next to him, close to him so he could hold us one more time. We cuddled up and layed on his chest just like we did every morning during our vacations together. It felt safe, like laying in the arms of your father when you were a small kid. He started telling us a story about why he would die.
He told us that he wanted to live, that he wanted to be with us but that he knew his time was over. We both started shedding tears like crazy, we couldn’t stop crying and to this day I still can’t stop crying about it. He tried to calm us by telling us how much he loved us. How much he enjoyed the years spent with us. He told us how proud he was of who we were and what we had done. All without shedding a tear, he was strong at that moment. But after he told us everything he wanted to tell he started asking us something. And the things he asked I still remember like it were yesterday. The way I and my sister sat on the bed, cross-legged tears rolling down our cheeks. My aunt staring out the window crying like crazy. My mom and dad in the doorway trying to stay strong. I remember my dad hugging my mom whilst crying out loud himself and I looked back at my uncle and saw how he couldn’t stop the tears anymore. One by one they fell off his chin and he looked me deep in the eyes and started asking me something.
He asked me to always go for what I love, to finish my school in one go and to never look back at it. He told me that if I did that he would let the sun shine every morning, how he would be there for me when I needed him the most. And he started crying like crazy, knowing that he couldn’t be there for me in a physical form. That he couldn’t hug me when I needed it most. He promised me that if I graduated high school he would buy me a scooter. I laughed at him and give him a big hug. But when I graduated I never wanted it. I did not ask for it because I knew that the scooter wasn’t the thing that he gave me. He gave me much more than that. He gave me memories that would always remind me of love and happiness. He gave me a friend that even though he wouldn’t be where I could still turn to him in my thoughts.
He turned to my sister and asked her the same. He asked her to stay beautiful just the way she is.
And then he asked us to sit close to him and he grabbed both of our hands. He looked at us and then at my aunt. The thing he asked next still to this day comes up first when I see my aunt. He asked us to take care of her. To be with her when she had a tough time. To go visit her often, to give her a hug when she was lonely and to show her all the love we had because he couldn’t anymore he told us. As we all cracked at that moment.
Now I am older I understand what that really meant. I now understand what those words meant to my aunt and my parents. That, later on, became the standard I now live by. He, even though he was at his worst, still cared more about my aunt then anything in the world. That shift of perspective, that sign of pure love, love that goes above and beyond your own well being that is the beauty and the kind of love that I wanna put out in this world. I want to let everyone around me know that I immensely care about them. That hurting them would tear me apart and I wanna show them that every bad thing has its beauty. Just like I do now.
Because death is a terrible thing but the things you learn from it will never be a terrible thing. It shows you what real love is, it shows you what you can live for and I can now say that I am fortunate enough to have had the time and the support to allow myself to heal from this loss. To see the beauty in it instead of seeing the negativity in it.
That moment right there and then was a moment where all the happiness, all the love, all the positive emotions we ever had together came out. We shared a moment of pure, raw and untouched emotion. I will forever be grateful for that.
