Gingerbread men, chocolate éclairs, freddo frogs and bullseyes. Sweets lots of sweets, Gran was like my own personal sweetshop. Whenever I wanted a sweet she would feed me from her personal stash, even if Daddy had said no first. She’d pass me the sweet then shuffle off to join pa winking at me. She’d stand behind him twirling his hair in her fingers. They were so cute together.

Twenty years on and the house is still standing there. The windows are now like soulless eyes not warm and happy like it used to be. I open the front door and get showered by dust. Coughing and spluttering I make my way into the lounge room. The carpet is frayed and the house smells musty, the floorboards creak beneath me as if they resent my presence. Looking absentmindedly at the cabinet in the lounge room I notice that the glass mouse still only has one ear.
‘Its my funeral!’ she screamed
‘And you’re my wife!’ He reasoned
The mouse sailed passed his ear and smashed into the heater.
I follow the hall into the kitchen, as I look around I notice that Gran’s most treasured glass stands on the bench alone. Anger spurs from the bottom of my soul as I recall the torment and pain she went through in her final years. When she needed someone she could rely on she got an alcoholic, she sought help from someone who could barely look after himself let alone her in her darkest hours.
Plate after plate soars into the plastic box with all the force I can muster, destroying the crockery seems to ease my anger and give me room to breathe again. As I remove the old crockery and wipe down the cupboards I place my own sets into the empty spaces. Gran wouldn’t mind, this was the reason she gave me the house, to start anew. All of her special champagne flutes are placed into a beautiful rose encrusted box for safekeeping and replaced with my own. The first of my own special glasses to be unpacked is my wedding present from Gran.
It was a beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, Gran fluttered around me patting my veil down and arranging my bows in my hair. She kept muttering things like ‘you look so beautiful’, ‘I can’t believe you’re getting married’ and ‘when will you be having children?’ Pa stood there in the background arms crossed and eyebrows knit. The wedding is almost a complete blur of bliss, the reception was amazing, everyone looked so beautiful and happy, even Pa could not help but smile.

I made my way from the kitchen back into the lounge room, in the ornately carved cabinet that the mouse resides in is also another collection of glasses Gran treasured. Her wedding glass was among them. She used to tell me of her wedding, how beautiful it was and how her father was so much like Pa, refusing to believe that there was someone on this earth that was good enough for his precious daughter. There are pictures of her Wedding on the Photo Wall she looked so exquisite. Her hair was in ringlets all the way down to her hips, her makeup was just glamorous. It’s hard to believe that the chiselled unweathered handsome face next to her is Pa. He also looked stunning. There is no photo’s of her father in the house there never was and never will be. I have never seen him, but she said it was no great loss, so I took no notice.
I move into the bedroom to replace an old romantic couples nest with the nest of a younger more adventurous couple. Their bed has made a lovely home for the rats and other pests that reside in this wonderful place. It’s disgusting to see the mahogany bed go to the dump but there is no place for it in this modern world. Empty the drawers; empty the cupboards remove everything; that is my aim. It’s so hard to remove my childhood memories from the house but I must make room for my new life; that is what Gran wanted. Tears roll down my cheek. I miss her; she taught me everything I know. Crystal represented every major milestone achieved in her lifetime; christening, turning 18 and 21, getting married, reaching 50 years of marriage. Crystal also represents her death, her ashes sit on the cupboard, there were so many arguments about her death and what would happen afterwards. She didn’t want a service or to be buried, she was just cremated ‘so there would be less tears’ she’d say. Well Gran I hate to tell you, it doesn’t matter how you go, the tears still run like rivers.

I take the urn into the lounge room and place it in the centre of the ornately carved redwood cabinet. I notice as I walk through the house it no longer resents my presence and has accepted that I am the new owner; there will be a new family to build and grow inside it. This house holds so many memories as it is, soon it will hold another lifetime full.