Smelling the flowers on the way

It's summer. Almost. And I try to desperately think why I have no memories of scorching summers during childhood.

Most recollections are warm summers that were just hot. Never unbearable. Summers remind me of shady trees, sleepy afternoons, ice lollies, long walks, longer daylight hours, millions of fireflies in the night as I rest my head on mom's lap and count stars. While I listen to her stories, fascinated.

But winters were a different story... foggy, little woolen gloves, warm fireplaces and lots of cold cream. And finally the huge olive tree at my grandma's place. Forbidden to eat the fruit in the chilly weather, my earliest memories are of racing towards the olive tree as the icy wind slapped my face. Of eating the sour fruits and getting my throat hoarse. While I pant, under the tree, face flushed red and hot from the run, my cousin would produce a little brown stick and light it. A gift from the cousins from 'foreign'. And dear cousin would smoke half the ciggy and give me tips on things to eat later to cut out the smell of the smoke.

Grandma's lovely cottage, I believe was gifted to grandpa by the British. He worked for a British tea company and mom spent a childhood with little English children chasing butterflies with their nets. The cottage stood pretty surrounded by lawns and gardens and open fields.

Along the lane after the cottage, was a little village and a full day of my holiday would be spent being dragged by mom from one house to the next as she went to visit the members of each and every house. Everybody seems to be somehow related and the way promises were made to visit, I had visions of the whole village arriving at our door some day. Aunts and uncles emerged and I would be hugged and squeezed and pinched. Finally at dusk, stuffed painfully with food lovingly fed at every house, we would head back to grandma's cottage.

What I loved most was the ritual after that. We would walk past a field with wild flowers and bamboo trees. And in a clearing in the middle lay a neat little patch. A stone epitaph marked my mom's father's name with fresh flowers around it. He was cremated in the place he loved best. Close to his home and hearth. As I bow in reference to a man I have never seen, I wonder what my mother must be feeling to be standing at the grave of the man who taught her to walk and talk. A man who openly loved his only daughter and shamelessly favoured her over his 7 sons.

At that moment I feel my heart tug as an invisible bond tightens. A bond with a dead man. I look at mom and see the serenity on her face. We are both one, two women, part of him, part of the circle of life, standing against a crimson sky. Slowly mom takes my hand and we walk home.