To the parents

This story contains 1 implication(s) of death.

My uncle called it the drawing room, though no art was involved, it was just a fancy way old people said living room. But to me, it was just that, a drawing room. The room that was put aside for me, mom said “My little Adéla is not so little now, she's 15, she needs her own space., malý bratr” That was two years ago, before the rakovina took her. So my uncle Cermaka gave me this room. In my own bedroom there is no aroma, or at least none I ever notice. Yet the fragrance in The Drawing Room takes me back to the meadows outside the village Eliška -my mum- and I hail from. I guess it helps that it had long grasses in cream vases and a subtle floral print to the wallpaper. But even with my eyes closed I can smell it, inhaling deeply like each breath is a time machine, and just for those few precious seconds I'm twelve all over again with buttercups in our hair.

I saw the view in my imagination even as my fingers touched the fabric curls, yet those moments of their opening ever brought a better reality, a higher definition of what nature so casually conjures. This is what I will draw today, mom would love it. The browns and yellows, Beautiful. If a hurricane could meet a rainbow, if it could be calmed by the sweetness of a summer choosing to rest her vibrant song, that would be autumn to me. It is when the vibrant overture of life begins to signal for peace and calm. In my youth I thought it was a time to learn patience, to see the coming of winter and let days pass until the spring, no longer. Every season is a season of beauty, every day is something to savor, treasured for what it brings. Adversity is a chance to shine, to rise to challenge; abundance is a chance for joy and rest. So each of these days, as I embrace "what is" and seek ways to bring forth the goodness that "what could be," I feel more of the rainbow and less of the hurricane, and am thankful for blessed rain and sunshine alike. I took a moment to look around the room. The architecture of the place was no more apparent than in the bookcase. The stairs had been built first, arcing like the end of a cat's tail before ascending the first floor. The bookcase had come next, built up by the wall, each shelf starting right next to the stair. It was as if the place was designed one feature at a time, each idea feeding off the last. The bookcase was ornate, as if carved by a person with a profound love of literature. The engravings were of leaves, of autumn berries and birds on the wing - so sublime as to invite the fingers to take it in just as much as the eyes.

I grab my sketchpad, opening it to the first blank page, the moment my color pencils hit the page, This art pours out of me, as if my heart wishes to sing all day and all night. It is such a chatterbox, this heart of mine. It dances in the words as if it were performing a ballet, loving each tiny movement. It comes as a river, often gentle, yet with a flow that appears to have a sense of where it is going. It comes to be born rather than molded, to show itself for what it is. It is a lot of me and a lot of divine inspiration, or that is how I see it when the artist truly loves, when the art is the proof of the loving heart. My hands spread color like fire through the page, but when i finish, it isn’t flowers, leaves or trees i’ve drawn, no, it’s a women, younger, mabey 36, under her eyes sunk in, she was holding something, a child, in one hand, reaching towards the child's hand with the other Her fingers, boney though they were, touched as softly as the wands of new spring foliage. From her eyes to the warmth of her smile, she was a conduit for happiness, as if the universe chose her to channel its positivity through. So as she reached out those aged hands to bid the child good journey, and with small hands the child did the same, and there was something magical in it. THe woman was clearly sick, Clearly ill, dying. But the baby was new.

I felt warmth on my chin, tears slid down, the woman was my mother Eliška, holding me as a baby, before the rakovina took her, the cancer. “Mama, I miss you.” I say kissing the drawing. I did this every time I drew, I always drew her, I put her sketchbook on the beautiful bookcase she’d made with papa, Back in her spot. “Goodnight mama.” I whisper , closing the curtains. Maybe next time I'll draw the world. But for now I think of days in the meadow, roses in our pockets. Maybe I chose the most perfect memory of my mother and clung to it because in that moment she was the person she should have been, would have been, had it not been for the stress of life. In that snapshot her unwarped personality was something so golden and sacred I want to keep it forever. Like an old movie reel I can play it at will, 2001, on the back lawn of our old house. She's smiling, happily holding the hand of a child. She asks me if I want to dance, and of course I do. What 12 year old doesn't want to dance with their mum in the most beautiful garden? In moments she's tickling me and then papa has my right wrist and ankle. spins like a shot-putter, but he never lets go. The garden turns into a green blur, I'm flying- flying until he can spin no more. The memory has no smells or weather, other than a lack of rain. The garden is in fine detail: the crab apple tree, the rhododendron bush, the weeds in the flower beds. But the finest detail is their faces, creased with love and my joy- not only for the ride or flowers but for being with them, for being with my parents.