“What are you doing?”
I look into my brother’s room. He’s sitting on the bed, a
bowl of hot cheetos in hand. The T.V is blaring one of my favorite movies, The Perfect Storm. The room smells just
like my brother, a mixture of cologne and dryer sheets. Oddly enough, it is one
of my favorite smells. I snap out of my trance and look around the room. Brown.
Almost everything in the room is brown, a soft brown like the color of our eyes.
I climb onto the bed and I am instantly engrossed by the movie. It is not a
hard task to occupy my seven-year-old mind. I grab some Cheetos and take a
couple of bites. Before I know it, we are talking and laughing, completely
oblivious to the movie in the background.
I knew this day would eventually have to come; the day my
brother moves out, leaving only an empty room full of memories behind. Leaving me
to conquer the world all on my own.
“Hey Grandma, do you need help unpacking your stuff?”
“No, but come here for a second.”
I walk into Grandma’s new room, which was also my
brother’s old room. I’m overwhelmed by the smell of lavender and fresh flowers.
It smells exactly like the perfume Grandma has been wearing for years. It seems
Grandma also decided to get rid of all the brown and replace it with her favorite
shade of purple. Grandma pulls out a
huge chest. Being only thirteen, I’m very curious to know what is inside. She opens
it up and I see that there is a ton of photographs in there, photographs of my
mom. I can tell that these are old-timey photographs, the kind you would see in
a 1970’s movie. We sit down on the bed
and pick through the pictures, and for every picture Grandma has a wonderfully
elaborate story to go along with it. I learn all sorts of new things about my mom,
some things I wish I never found out about. We sit on the bed for over an hour,
just talking and looking through the dozens of photographs. I don’t even mind
that I just wasted my whole day with Grandma; because no day spent making memories
is actually wasted.
I dreaded the day Grandma was moving out. It seems like
she came in one day, then she was gone the next. The only things of
significance that she left behind were memories. She took everything else and
headed back to Texas, taking a piece of my heart along with her.
“Mom!
Would you please help me move my stuff into that room?”
Being sixteen is tough, especially when everyone expects
you to do everything on your own. I struggle to walk down the stairs, arms full
of my most prized possessions. I successfully make it to my new room. Mhm. Cologne,
dryer sheets, lavender, flowers. It smells exactly like it did when it belonged
to my brother, and then Grandma. Soon the scent and colors will change to match
my personality; vanilla and blue.
I set my things down on the bed and smile to
myself. All of the memories from this room suddenly come rushing back to me,
the late nights, the early mornings, the fights, the long talks; everything.
The
colors of the room have changed. The fragrance of the room has changed. The people that lived in that room have also changed.
The room itself has stayed the same, and the memories I have in that room will
stay with me for the rest of my life. One day, probably sooner than I realize, I’ll
move away to college. My little sister will be able to move into that room. I
hope that she’ll be able to make just as many great memories in that room as I have.
