The Chair

My first attempt at writing, this was back in High School, thanks Mr. Baldous Lee for giving me the love to do this:

When I was 10, in my bedroom was a rocking chair. I don't know why my mom put one there really, except as a sort of 'swing' for me and my sister I thought. We had a relatively big house so it wasn't there because we had nowhere else to put it. It puzzled me back then why of all the rooms it had to be in mine, that is until one evening.

My lola (grandmother) was in town for a visit. We hardly took notice of her, much preferring to play and eat than to stay and have a chat with her. She was a quiet lady, not saying anything, not complaining from the lack of attention we gave her everytime she came over. I thought she didn't care, that she was just there to get her 'allowance' from my mom. I kept thinking that way until that evening.

It was a fun evening, me and my sister played til it was almost time for bed. Things got a little out of hand though and it ended up with me breaking a lamp that my mom really liked. We fought: I said I didn't mean it, she said I should have been careful. Neither wanted to to admit anything. I always slept in my mom's bedroom till that evening. I ran out of her room and locked myself in mine, angry and frustrated thinking 'Why couldn't she understand?' I almost cried myself to sleep but I heard a soft knock on my door... it was my lola. She asked, 'Are you okay? I heard you shouting.' She saw the look in my eyes and knew exactly what happened.

She entered my room and sat down on the rocking chair. She asked me to go to bed and said she'll tell me a story. I complained that I was too old to listen to a fairy tale. She just said 'This is different, just listen will you?' Reluctantly, I went to bed thinking 'this is silly'...

My lola told me a story about a young girl who had a fight with her mother. The fight was so terrible that the young girl left their home and never came back, convinced that her mom hated her and wanted her out. Through the years she always wondered if she made the right choice. She grew up, married, had children, and grew old, never going back home to reconcile with her mom. It was only when she heard her mother passed on that she went home to pay her respects.

When she arrived, only then did she realize how wrong she was all this time. In her old room were perhaps dozens of gifts. She thought 'That's unusual, bringing gifts to a wake'. After asking one of her brothers why there were gifts in a time like this, he gave her this puzzled look and said 'Those are for you. When you left, mama kept on buying birthday gifts for you hoping you'd be home to open them.'

Lola paused, looked at me and said 'Don't make the same mistake I did.' She stood up and left and at that moment I knew why I had a rocking chair in my room... and why I had my lola.