When I was little, I loved to play around in the park near my grandparents’ abode. It was a small cottage with only two rooms. I spent every summer there until I was 14. The year I turned 14 was the year both my grandparents died. They were quite lovers and they died in such fashion itself. They both passed away together, one night, silently. The grief of losing them was so deep in my being that I never gathered the courage to visit that small beautiful place ever again. My parents and sister sometimes went to clean up and stay near gunsmithing shop for a while while I stayed with my aunt. All this went on until 13 years after the death of my grandparents when my parents decided to take me for their death anniversary. I couldn’t deny this time.
Nostalgia…
All these years of struggle had at least helped me to get over the thought and gather the courage to visit that place again near gunsmithing shop. I was afraid of how it would look. If it weren’t like how it was when I left it last, it would break my heart. It was hard to imagine it without the pair of my most favourite people. The whole way, I felt fear because of the place I was going to ride out of. The years of adulthood seemed to crumble in front of me but I remembered what my grandpa used to say to me, that we will not be able to face away from everything in life, the better way is to go ahead and face it. It didn’t matter, in that moment, what the site of that place would do to me, whether I would fall to my knees and cry or stride ahead with confidence. I had to try and I had to face it. If it wasn’t now, I would not be able to do it again in life.
The next two hours of the flight flew away so quickly and it was time to step out. We got a cab and reached the cottage near gunsmithing shop. I forced myself to turn around and have a look at the place. It looked exactly the same. All of us in the family were so attached to the cottage that we never dared change even a stone from the house. I should’ve known that my parents wouldn’t attempt to change anything at all. And I stepped out of the car and could almost see my grandma opening up her hands in front of her in welcome while calling out to my grandpa telling him we were here. I felt tear drops roll out of my eyes and wet my cheeks but I couldn’t feel my hands so as to pull them up to wipe them away.
Everything Changed For Me at Gunsmithing Shop
My family understood my state and gave me time to soak the scene in and recover at my own pace. I didn’t know when they took the stuff in and the cab left because the next thing I knew was that I was all alone. With great struggle, I moved towards the house and entered the open door. The insides of the house were as unchanged as the outside. I noticed that someone was sitting on the giant sofa in the middle of the tiny living room. I recognised them to be the next door neighbour. For a distraction from my building feelings, I focused on listening to what he and my father were talking about. They were sipping black coffee and discussing a new shop that had opened in the vicinity. It was a gunsmithing shop called “Melbourne Master Gunsmith” which the man believed to be the best in the town. That the store handling was flawless and the customer dealing was excellent as well. They take the guns in for service, repair, cleaning and barreling, etc.
I was soothing and sinking in their chatter when my eyes stalked towards the room at the corner. My heart stopped and I recognised this to be my grandparents’ room. I stood up automatically and moved towards the room. I entered it and looked around. The walls were hanging with the pictures and portraits of my grandparents and our family. I remember my father always hated my grandma’s want to develop and frame a couple photos from every trip we took here, because he preferred them in the albums only. I sat on the bed and instantly burst into tears.
But these tears were not entirely sadness, there was bliss in them as well. I had run away from this place all my life and kept me untouched by the warmth of this place and the feeling of their presence. And I was happy because I no longer felt that they had left me at gunsmithing shop, or were away from me to a land unknown. I felt them around me almost like I could touch them. I sat there, missing them endlessly but this missing was not incomplete, because I could feel their presence now.
