Hourglass

Asli Noyan

Every afternoon when the clocks hit 4:00, I ran to the extremely tidy kitchen of my house.  I came to a stop by sliding on the red carpet that was twice my size in the middle of the kitchen.  Around the carpet were three counters, making a U shape around the room. On top of one of them was a big clear window with the view of our green garden and the narrow road winding down in front of our house. There was nothing in this kitchen that interested me as the drawer where I kept my chocolate was empty. By stepping on the handles of the drawers, I carried myself up and placed myself on the counter. The view from the kitchen window was rarely interesting, but I still came here every day. 

I often looked out at the stagnant view for thirty minutes before a black 2002 Volvo pulled up in front of the house. Excitement filled my small body; my mom had arrived. She never noticed me staring out the window with a huge smile on my face, watching her every move. I impatiently waited as she turned off the engine and got out of the car to get her bag from the back seat.  When she reached the garden door, she finally noticed me and smiled. I flew off the counter and ran to the front door to greet her. The minute she stepped in, I gave her an energetic hello and hugged her tightly. She smelled like spring. No one else I knew smelled like spring after spending a long day at a hospital.

***

My parents’ room is filled with cards, posters and collages that I have made for no reason whatsoever.  All of them say in huge, colorful fonts, “I LOVE YOU MOM, I LOVE YOU DAD” followed by a cheesy drawing of my family of four sitting in a floating heart. 

I used to make these cards for every occasion. At first, I started making them for my mom’s birthdays. Like everyone else, she only has one birthday every year, but I seem to have made at least fifteen cards per year. Every time my mom went on daily trips, which was at least once a month, I made her a “Welcome Back” card. I thought that these cards took her by surprise. I mean who would have guessed, even after the tenth time? Every time I gave her one of my colorful cards with the staple cheesy family drawing on it, she said, “Oh…wow thank you so much! I love it.” These words filled me with joy and made me plan out what my next card should be like. 

Up until I started first grade, I was attached to my mom as if we had been glued together. Before I started kindergarten, I woke up every morning at 7 AM and followed my mom around the house as she got ready. I kept asking her, “When are WE leaving mom?” She never knew how to tell me that I was staying home and she was going to go to work. My mom would escape when I was distracted by my babysitter’s arrival. Later in the day, I would realize that she had left and vow that I would never talk to her again. Of course, I always ended up waiting for her arrival at the kitchen window. 

Not only did I want her to spend the whole day with me, but I also wanted to be the only child that she interacted with. Whenever she hugged my brother, I threw myself on couches and screamed at the top of my lungs until she paid attention to me.  When we had guests over and she paid attention to their children, I stormed out of the living room. 

***

When I first started elementary school, I aspired to be like my mom in many ways. I admired how efficient she was and did not understand how she could prepare dinner for four in twenty minutes. I admired how fast she finished a book; I admired her green eyes and straight hair. One day when she was not home, I went to her room, the most interesting room in the house, and took all her makeup. Not knowing what anything was, I stuffed her powder, eye shadow, concealer and whatever else women use, in my Barbie school bag. At school all my friends and I went through the pile in awe. We grabbed a piece of paper and used my mom’s $100 concealer to draw stick figures and used the mascara to create shadows. At the end of the day, I stuffed everything in my locker and went home like nothing had happened. A week later, my mom came to school for Parent-Teacher Day. Before meeting my teachers, she came to take a look at my classroom. Up until the moment she entered the classroom, I had not thought about the makeup products that I had “borrowed.” I tried to console myself by thinking she would not look at my locker. Just my luck, that was first on her list. 

On the way home, the car was silent. I was sitting in the back seat and trying to make eye contact with her through the rear-view mirror. I do not remember anything she said to me that day, but I remember the feeling of disappointment in myself all too well. My mom did not raise her voice once that day, but the cold air between us hit me harder than any yelling ever would have. 

*** 

My mom is a pediatric nephrologist. In short, she specializes in children with kidney problems. Every day she treated young children chained to dialysis machines. Ever since I can remember she has told me, “You need to drink a lot of water and pee regularly. You have to take care of your kidneys.” My six-year-old self did not care a tiny bit about kidneys; taking care of my Barbie’s hair and dresses seemed more important. For all I knew, I peed whenever I really really needed to. This tendency of mine led to my mom asking me the question, “Did you pee at school today?” every single day I went to school for the next eight years. The minute my school bus dropped me off at our front door, my mom would let me in, take my coat off, ask me how my day went and then interrogate me about whether I had gone to the bathroom or not. Most days, this question would catch me off guard. “Oh…that. Yeah, I completely forgot…but I did not feel the need anyway.” This response would lead to my mom becoming extremely frustrated to the point where she did not know what to say for a couple seconds. To make things worse, many days I would say, “I hate the bathrooms at my school; they are disgusting.” I just did not understand. “Is she crazy?” I thought to myself. The lectures about the kids she worked with every day and how much they suffered made me feel guilty for only a couple minutes; the lesson to be learned never took its place in my brain. All I remembered was the idea, Mom is paranoid. 

***

Over the years, I stopped making cheesy cards for every event and grew to be more awkward with each passing day. By the time I reached thirteen, I was not even able to say I love you to anyone I loved because it made me feel uncomfortable. On my dad’s fifty-third birthday, I got him a book that I thought he would like. When it came to writing a note in the book, I could not come up with anything that did not make me slightly uncomfortable. When my mom tried to help me with what to say, I got annoyed at everything she suggested and asked her to leave me alone. 

Time changed me from a compassionate little girl to a displeased teenager.  Whatever was wrong in my life, I blamed my mom for it. When she prepared anything other than meatballs and fries for dinner, I complained for hours on end, claiming that she was “trying to torture me.” When she tried to kiss me, I pushed her away because she was being “too clingy.” I woke her up in the middle of the night because I was hungry or because I could not sleep. When she asked me to call her when I got home, I rolled my eyes at her and told her she was being too paranoid and that I would never raise my child like that.  

The first time I saw my mom cry changed the way I saw her forever. My brother and I were sitting in his room one night when we heard my dad yelling. We both looked at each other in shock and confusion. Slowly opening the door, we tiptoed our way out and went to sit at the top of the stairs. I could clearly hear my parents who were in the middle of a heated argument in the living room downstairs. I did not understand what they were arguing about. My brother was no help because all he did was give me a quick “Shhh!” whenever I tried to ask him. The argument mainly consisted of my dad failing to keep his voice down and my mother talking softly and asking him to calm down. I could not and still do not understand how she is able to stay composed in such situations.  As the minutes that felt like hours passed by, I could tell that my mom was getting tired. She barely spoke anymore, and all I could hear was my dad’s angry voice. My brother and I could not see our parents, their voices were all we had to understand what was going on. It took us both by surprise when the voices suddenly stopped. A few seconds later, the sound of rushed steps replaced the silence. My brother grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me to his room as our parents ran up the stairs. I heard my mom’s weak voice telling my dad to leave her alone and felt a rock sit in my stomach. Was she really crying? I quickly ran to their room to find her sitting on the couch rubbing her red eyes. I had never seen her like this; she had always been Mom with a smile on her face. I did not know what to do or say. She told me that everything was okay and that I should not worry as I hugged her. Everything was okay and my parents made up the next day, but that sight is one that I will never forget. Though she rarely cried, that look on her face was not new to me. I saw it every time I treated her badly. 

Time changes everything. It changes the dynamics of a relationship and the lens one sees the world through. Time forces people to see the reality that it will eventually separate people from their mothers and fathers forever. Some people realize this at the age of seventeen while some only realize it when it is too late.