When I was a child, I had always seen my mother perform all her duties with sincerity and do her best to improve our family. So to mention our family consisting of only three members; me, my mother and my father. Although it is clear that we belong to a nuclear family, at first the story was a little different.
At first, we lived in a joint family. It was a wonderful feeling living with the elderly and loving members. We enjoy our lives to the fullest; until one day when bad news spread to our family. I received a blow when I heard the following words echoing from my father’s mouth; “I have lost my job.” I received an even harder blow a few days later when I heard that since we could not contribute a single cake in the family we had to leave the house. We soon moved to a much smaller apartment. As it was hard for us to pay the rent for the house, my mother started working in an entertainment institute.
Since then, my father became a silent man. He found loneliness in his isolation and was always preoccupied with thoughts that went from everywhere to everywhere. Although he never informed us, we knew that he was trying to find a job, but unfortunately his luck did not favor him. Then one day when I came back from school, I couldn’t find my father anywhere or near our apartment. It was as if it had disappeared out of nowhere. I searched frantically for him, fear gripping me. So I decided to call my mother. When she got home she looked pale and terrified, but she remained strong. He didn’t even try to look for it. I was the one who ran madly through the streets looking for him. Since then my mother has become expressionless and more compliant and has become a workaholic woman … these are some of my mother’s memories and feelings that I found in the forbidden closet. I burst into tears when I finished reading my mother’s journal. I kept the journal carefully and looked for something; it was smooth and smelled sweet. When I took it out of the closet I broke with a wry smile, because it was a pink bear that my father had probably given my mother.
In fact, I could tell it from the note that was taped to the teddy bear’s ears. Although the teddy bear was intact, but her girlish pink color had faded, like my father’s very existence. By now, the teddy was wet from my tears. I kept the bear and my hands came into contact with a book. It was a photo album that contained photos of my mother and father. “They looked so happy together and so in love”; I thought to myself while flipping through his photos. It was interesting to see how my mother had gone to the trouble of providing captions and comments to each and every photo in the album. There were photos of them from childhood until they got married. They both seemed to have had the happiest times of their lives together. After looking at the photos I was even more perplexed as I couldn’t make out what was the reason that led my father to abandon us. But my confusion disappeared the moment I received my father’s letter. In his last letter to my mother, my father had cited his inefficiency and my mother’s efficiency as the real cause of his abandonment. He even questioned my mother’s character. After reading the letter I was able to deduce that my mother had known everything from the beginning, even before I called her. There had been problems between them, every night behind closed doors. In his last words to my mother, he even apologized to my mother for hitting her … All of this was hidden from me considering my age. Again I let my hands roam the shelves of the forbidden closet. This time I saw a bouquet of preserved roses with the dates written on them, from when they were delivered … and tears ran down my eyes. Composing myself, I searched the closet again until I felt something soft and silky. I took it out. It was a crimson black satin nightgown. I understood that she had tried to preserve the most beautiful moments of her life. But there was one thing that I could not preserve, and that was the essence and the smell of my father. I closed the closet when I finished looking at all its components.
I understood why the closet was forbidden to me all this time … because my mother wanted me to see everything at once. With heavy heart I returned to my room where I saw my mother. She was sitting there cross-legged and playing the violin … the saddest notes came out from the contact of the bows and strings. His eyes were still expressionless. Maybe she’s still waiting for him to come or … she already has a clue that he no longer exists.