In the quiet aftermath of loss, when the world seems to grind to a halt and grief hangs heavy in the air, there’s a stark, biting realization that often follows. For me, that realization came with the cash purchase of my new home—a place of my own, bought entirely with the money from the estate, savings accounts, and life insurance policies from my parents’ untimely demise. Sure, it’s a lavish escape from the daily grind, a token of their final gift to me, but I would trade it all just to be able to scream at them one final time about what terrible people they were.
The initial mourning period was just that – initial. Now, with the dust settled and the paperwork completed, I’m left with a 3,000 square feet of livable space and profound sense of regret—not for the financial windfall, but for the missed opportunity to let my parents have it one last time, like really let them know what I think of them. To scream at them, to let them know exactly how they scarred my life. To blame my dad for not letting me go to Allen Tucker’s house party when I was 15 and to remind my mom what a bitch she is, for no particular reason.
I’ll never again be able to throw a tantrum over the times they’d made me go to family gatherings when I clearly wanted to stay home. The endless critiques of my career choices, which they never hesitated to remind me were subpar compared to their lofty expectations. And who could forget the incessant nagging about my lifestyle, or their inability to remember my friends’ names, or their obsession with the men I dated? All of these were little wounds that festered over time, each one a reminder of how they fell short in their parental duties.
Every corner of my new mansion holds a haunting echo of what might have been. A grandiose living room where I could have flung my frustrations about the time they forgot my birthday. A spacious kitchen where I could have thrown a pot of spaghetti against the wall when my mother critiqued my cooking skills. I could have turned the home theater into a shrine of grievances, with a rotating photo collage of failed expectations and unmet promises.
I would gladly trade every square foot of this luxury and comfort it affords, for just one more opportunity to scream at them about the countless ways they let me down. The walls of this new home may be adorned with my success, but they are haunted by the echoes of pent up rage.
So here I sit, in my expansive new abode, surrounded by opulence that was once intended to comfort me. But the real comfort would have been to face them, to unleash a torrent of frustration, and to let them know how deeply they had ruined my life. I’d trade this entire house in a heartbeat for that one more chance—to yell at the ghosts of my past and demand they answer for not buying me AppleBottoms in 2006.