Twelve Years

I still remember the first time I saw this house. We'd come here to buy it. Back then, it was not a bit similar to the way it is right now. Neither the interior nor the outerior. The house was changed extensively before we moved in. It was the summer of 1379 S.H (2000 C.E).

I think one of the main factors my parents chose to live here was because it was very close to my grandparents' house, only two alleys away. I remember that we used to visit them quite often back then. But why would we want to move in the first place? The answer is that we lived in a small apartment owned by a government company, and my father had recently been hired at the oil refinery. That meant a far better pay. And I guess it wasn't just that, I think his own business was doing better too. We were getting somewhat rich, and the apartment was too small for us.

So we moved in here. At first, I missed our old apartment much. I was only six and a half years old back then. I was very much attached to that apartment, after all, I had spent the very first years of my life there. I had a small child's lifetime memories bound to the walls of that apartment. But we had to move. It was too small for us.

And now, we are moving out of this house, not because it's too small for us, but because we cannot pay back the loan we got on this house. Cruel, isn't it? We tried to escape it, postpone it (we did that several times), whatever we could... But we're moving out now. I don't really care much how this happened, though.

When I first heard, maybe one or two years ago, that we might have to move out, I thought it would be very difficult. All the memories! All the stuff! Oh, the flowers and trees in the backyard... The tamarind trees, most importantly, weren't there at all when we came here. My mother loves all the plants passionately. And oh, the female cat that used to know me since she was a kitten! She has given birth to at least 30-35 kittens in our backyard by now. She still rests at the door during the summer because of the cool breeze there. Her four kittens are probably in the backyard at this moment. She talks to me. She has always talked to me. That doesn't mean she never acts aggressively, but... As strange as it might sound, I am going to miss her the most. Not my room. Not the kitchen in which I learned to cook. Not the walls and the doors. I am going to miss the living things. The flowers and the trees, the grass, the cats. Especially her. Many cats have come and gone, but she has always been here.

Still, I do not find it hard to leave. Not hard at all. Probably because I have grown up to a certain level. Maybe because I am going to leave for university anyway. Perhaps because twelve years is a long enough time. Whatever the reason, I can say I am happy. Happy with this twelve years and all the memories it bears. Happy with this house and how it tolerated us, as we lived in it and transformed it. And happy that at last we are saying farewell to her... whether she manages to survive or not. I will never forget her.