The Tears

I was asked, “What is my earliest childhood memories”?

I never realized what a difficult question it would become…

And I thought, shuffling through the pages of my mind.

I have an excellent memory and recall points in time down to the very finest of details.

I turn the pages delicately, so as not to disturb their repose or crease their folds into obscurity. I chase my memories backwards through lanes and alleys and trip upon memories from my childhood.

It’s not the earliest that are the most profound, it is the memories of lessons learned that stand out on the spectrum of colours that have painted my short life with hues and tints of nostalgia.

My earliest memories aren’t memories at all.

They are subtle presentments that have triggers. The most strikingly discernible being aromas, sounds and feelings.

The prominent visual memories came later. I was then able to place the aromas, sounds and feelings with people, places and things.

Aromas such as rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, basil and lemon blossoms that grew in abundance in and outside our home. Dakria, which means ‘tears’ and is our local name for daffodils-narcissus, we named them thus because the grow in an area in our village called, The Tears.

I remember my father’s warm hug that was laced with the aroma of the mountains he wandered in search of newborn kids, how he would carry them gently within his embrace, bringing them to safety.

How father would allow me to hold them and how I would snuggle my little face in their warm fur, they smelled just like father of sage rosemary and thyme.

How such a giant of a man was so gentle.

I remember,

How father would stand on our veranda just before sunrise staring towards Anatoli — I knew he was praying.

He’d then snip a twig of basil that grew in the planter outside the entrance of our home his wedding band making a twinkling sound against the ring that was his brother. That he wore in his memory, of a life cut short, murdered. He would inhale its pungent fragrance, tucking it then into the diadem of his shepherds cap.

Basil was said to keep you safe.

When father returned home in the evenings — a breath of fresh air. Those are the aromas that followed his weary yet proud physique home. The aromas that settled and were absorbed into the foundation of our home — just as a divine entity seeks sanctuary.

Those are the earliest memories of father I have. I cannot place an age, they just are.

Much later memories were in letters I’d receive from father. When I was far from home — I’d open the envelope and the aroma of home would tickle my nostrils — resting in the fine crispy sheet — timidly, would be a sprig of dry basil.

Without words, reading between the lines, father was commanding me, symbolically to stay safe. To return home safely, to return with the same wellbeing I had left.

Lemon blossoms, ohhhh, and dakria (tears) are the aromas and flowers that niggle my earliest memories of mother.

After a long day of work how mother would remove her semperi (head scarf) in her favorite corner of the karpathiko (main room) by a soft light and comb out her long ebony tresses. The gentle aroma of lemon blossoms contradicting the strength of my mother’s lithe silhouette.

When dakria were in bloom father would go out of his way to bring some home for mother. They bloomed in the opposite direction from where he toiled.

I remember father embracing mother from behind, knees bending into her delicate frame lovingly, wrapping his arms around her presenting her with a bouquet of dakria.

Mother would whisper, “you bought me tears”?

Father caressingly would respond, “so that I can wipe them away”.

Mother would melt like a candle in to my fathers tall sturdy frame as he nuzzled his visage in the shadowed curvatures of me mothers neck, his countenance partially hidden in mothers curly locks.

This was their private diversion, quite enchanting to behold, mother rarely revealed this side of herself. It was an endearing metamorphosis from the stern mother who ran our home with an iron fist. I remember my little face suffusing with the warm colour of a fine rosé. I didn’t understand why I blushed, maybe because privacy was highly respected in our home but I understood love and observing my parents has taught me that there is nothing nobler than love and loyalty.

I don’t recall how old I was when these memories were pressed into my hearts mind, they just are.

A later more devastating memory of mother is placing, tears (dakria) on my fathers coffin.

Only father was not with us any longer to wipe away her tears, our tears.

Mother’s stoic persona crumbled, just as the sun bleached marbled ruins of the Ancient Greek temples strewn across our island.

Mother — leaned for the first time in her life on the children they had borne together.

The sternness stripped away leaving mother vulnerable to our eyes. Allowing us to observe what father had known all along, her adoration. She was always our strength, personified.

My stoic mother supplicating herself before the foe she knew was without peer, invincible, Thanatos!

It was a poignant moment in time, one that in its rarity, awoke in me a deeper estimation of mother.

These memories are the most prominent in their devastation, the loss of father bought me to my knees. That mother was preparing to leave us too, taking my faith with her, orphaned I would have to purchase faith, within the memories they had left behind, inspiring a faith greater than the one lost. The faith I had to rebuild lying in wait, written within the chapters of my mind.

When I visit father and mother, I take basil from the planter at the entrance of our home. Stay safe — you are far from home. The tears (dakria) aren’t far behind, I’ve learned to wipe them away, in their memory.

The gift of alluring memories allow me to traipse through my own Sacred Isles of the Blessed.

Tantalizing me with the elusive promises of Elysian Fields…

Copyright ©. R Tsambounieri Talarantas. Nov 2019. All Rights Reserved.