Pink Thoughts

I have lived in this house the last two years, but I've grown up in this house for the past 17. That's my whole life; close to two decades. I find it interesting what has changed and what has stayed. What's been forgotten and what never will.

I look up at this kitchen ceiling, and can recall seeing it in the light as eggshell white, sunshine yellow, and now a bubblegum pink. As the colors change, so do the memories.

Occasionally I'll see the ghosts of this kitchen. My grandmother in her green, fluffy sweats poking at her stir fry, smelling up the whole house with her eccentric ingredients. My grandfather cutting up avocados to make his famous guacamole. I can see my mother with a wine glass, working on a cherry pie all day that she won't be satisfied with unless there's the perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream to top it off. I see great grandpa Popsicle with his Monday-Sunday medication on the counter, forgetting to put it away because he's too excited about the kit kat bar he has waiting for him in the freezer. I see all of my mother's family, gathered in their own stations of the sunshine yellow-roofed kitchen creating such wondrous dishes for our thanksgiving feast. Occasionally i will even see my father, cutting a lime to put in my mother's gin and tonic on a Sunday BBQ. I see my sister, with her 9-month pregnant belly, reaching into the cupboard for the bread to make her fiance's lunch. I see my best friend Ange sitting on the counter, eating half-thawed shrimp, waiting for me to join her.

I see countless images. But I hear only one thing, my mother's child-like voice. "I've always wanted a pink kitchen ceiling." So I did that for her. She was so tired from writing story after story all day, she never would have done it herself. I got out the step stool, the paint, the blue tape, the brushes, and I made magic happen. My mother, always the optimist, believed the pink ceiling would create good vibes and a happy house. And it did.

But lately, this ceiling creates only one word in my mind: replacement. This is no longer my grandparents' house, it's no longer my mother's house, it's my sister's house. And though I love that my sister feels more at home, and has a family of her own, it is hard to cope with the fact that this is the last fragment of my mother left. It's no longer hers, and I fear she feels replaced.

But mom, nothing will ever replace you. This house will always be a part of you, as long as that ceiling has pink in its kitchen bones. In a decade there will be a new color painted over the fading pink, but we'll all know it's there. And it will always be because of your longing for pink, optimistic vibes. I love you, and I'm sorry things aren't the same.