I walked through the familiar, light yellow hallway that the house opened up to. So many memories of me running through this hall as a little girl, with a Barbie doll in my hand, flooded my mind. But even now, at night when I closed my eyes, the background of all my dreams was always that buttery yellow color. She used to tell me that she wanted her house to be “a happy house” and that “no other color is as happy as yellow is”.

I stepped into the kitchen through the battered screen door, and my mom was sitting on the floor packing up odd things like rolling pins and spatulas into neat, cardboard boxes. I wondered what would become of all of her kitchen stuff, like the flowered mixing bowls of hers that I love. It seems like everyone in my family was arguing over money and the will, and it made me smile a little thinking that the only thing I wanted from her was a mixing bowl. It felt foreign to smile, and as soon as I realized my emotion I wiped it off my face and moved into the next room.

The living room that I had basically grown up in was nothing like how I remembered it, which was just a couple weeks ago at Thanksgiving. The couches and chairs had apparently already been moved out, and the room looked sad and empty. The only real recognizable thing left was the pictures. Pictures were her favorite thing, and she left them all around the house. She used to constantly ask us to mail her our school pictures so that she could update our special picture frame. Each cousin, aunt, and uncle of mine had their own special place on the wall decorated with senior pictures, awkward homecoming candids, and baby portraits. What was I supposed to do with all my pictures now? Who would update the pictures and switch them out every year?

My mom peered her head around the corner.

“Addie, are you almost ready to go?”

“Just give me a few more minutes”, I replied.

I had one last thing that I wanted to do before leaving and saying goodbye.
I climbed the pastel lavender, carpeted steps up to the bedroom. As soon as I hit the top of the stairs, a wave of nostalgia hit me and I couldn’t contain the ocean of tears inside me. The room even still smelled like her favorite perfume, which everyone complained was always nauseating, but I suddenly wanted to smell that forever. It was the smell of her hugs, and something I would smell in the passing of a stranger on the street, not my grandmother anymore. I filled my lungs with her scent one last time, and pulled myself together before retreating back downstairs. I was supposed to be the strong one out of the family, and I wouldn’t let my mom see me cry.