My Home without Her

By Ee Lynn Gan

Posted on April 1, 2025

Cover Image Title: The Lake & Its Docks

Cover Image by: Ee Lynn Gan

Classification: Traditional media, Acrylic paint

Size: On two canvases, each of which is 38 cm X 30 cm

Year: 2025

Inhaling the earthy, subdued scent of the country has never been a strength of mine. The countryside was never meant for me. Ever. I loathe every part of it: the sights, the smells, the people… Yet, they still embrace me with welcome every time I visit out of family duty. I never said I was a bad daughter, just bad at being fond of the home I grew up in. 

    This time, its embrace felt different – colder and unfamiliar. 

    The house I grew up in is etched into my memory. With its gabled rooftops, ornate balconies and boastful Victorian facade, it's a hard place to forget. Time-worn wooden intricacies detail every area of the exterior, along with tall glass panes that warmed the house during winter and heated it mercilessly during summer. It's a reminder of my childhood, of the countless Sunday morning pancakes and the endless evening lakeside strolls. She was there in every single frame of memory: whipping up pancake mix, cleaning the dusty lace curtains, holding my hand…  

    A heavy gloom settled in the air; silence clung to the aged oak floorboards; dust coated every surface from the top ledge of windows to the end of table legs. Stepping over the threshold into the house felt like entering a barren zone. Empty. Hollow. Miserable. That was how much her presence upheld this place and everything associated with it. Without it, everything seemed to slowly deteriorate into a sadder, pitiful imitation of the original. 

    No one was home; no one could stand this uninvited aura that had taken over a ‘happy place’ for all of us. At least, they faced it once, this aura. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to the funeral. 

    I still could not fully accept it. She’s gone. 

9 June 2012 

    Another summer holiday; another dreadful trip back to the country. I pleaded with her to let me stay in New York, but she’s as stubborn as a mule, stuck in her ‘superior’ ways. Assignments are piling up, my thesis is due in less than 8 weeks, and everyone’s raving about the latest campus frat. 

    But she always gets her way. No matter what. 

    The view has yet to change: sparkly blue lakes that smell of rotting algae; towering old pines with bark rough enough to give blisters; and the pristine white deck stretching out onto the lake. Not a single thing has changed. 

   Hovering around the kitchen island, rolling pin in hand and an apron flecked with flour, that’s her, wearing an easy smile like all's right with the world.

    ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ That’s what she always says, and diligently lives by, as an avid follower of Gandhi’s wise philosophies. 

15 June 2024, day of burial

    I am not where I am supposed to be. All the filial pride I felt after quarterly visits back home has shriveled up and died like it was never there. Pa wants me back home, to say the last goodbye. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to feel that sickening, oppressive shadow of the Grim Reaper taking away the one thing — the one person — that meant something to me back home. 

   My phone keeps buzzing; texts from family keep coming in. Why does technology have to be so efficient? For once, I don’t want to know what’s happening in the world. 

    Pa sent me another sob story of a message: “Please, come home. She’d want you to be there for her. Do it for her, please.”

    I couldn’t care less about my family responsibility right now. How could I? After spitting all that nonsense to her face the very last time I saw her, and over the littlest matter. All because I refused to visit home a single time. My last moment with her just happened to be my worst. 

    Karma can be a real prick. 

18 August 2024, present day

    The deck still overlooked the same lake; the fairy lights still sparkled across the yard posts; the fire pit still smelled of burnt logs and charcoal. Nothing has changed. 

    Except the fact that she’ll never ‘grace the halls with her presence’ ever again. Can’t believe I used to mock her for that. 

    It's been a little over a month since things went south: no dirty aprons or sandy rolling pins or freshly-baked pistachio cheesecake cookies waiting on the counter for ‘free-for-all consumption’.  I actually really miss those cookies; although they were sweet enough to give someone a massive sugar slump. New yachts and sailboats now graced the lake, peacefully bouncing off the gentle tides: proof that time has indeed passed, and did not stand still like in those time-warp themed superhero movies.

    She’s become a part of the lake, the same waters these new boats now lull on. I will never be able to look at this shimmering gem of nature the same way again, now that she’s a part of it, too. 

    The world really does not stop for anyone, even for my favorite superhero of all time — my mighty mother.

[ Writing Editor: Anonymous. ]