“Samantha? Saaammmaannttthhaa!” I open my eyes. I must have fallen asleep. I wake up to see my mother, Molly Besiktas. With her short brown curly hair on top of her head in a messy bun. She had a little bit of paint on her cheek. My mother was a painter. A lovely one that is. She painted with feeling and passion and every Sunday she and I would go into our shed and put on painting clothes and threw darts at water balloons that had paint in them instead of water. And they were randomly across a big whiteboard. We would spend hours doing this. Doing trick shots, talking, and laughing, forgetting all of our bad times. I give her a warm smile to tell her that I am ok. She walks towards the back of the car to grab my stuff. I grabbed my mini bag and walk back to the back
Our eyes meet, I could still see fear and anxiety in her eyes. After all, she and I had gone through, my mother had gotten tougher and tougher. I have heard and seen my mother cry herself asleep and I hated it.
She doesn’t get as emotional anymore though.
“Welp this is it, honey! Welcome to Belleville Camp of Arts!” She says getting into a lunge position and waving her arms around like she was presenting me a new car! Because of my move, I needed to make friends. My mom had saved up all her money so I could come here. Although my mom was a painter in her free time, she was also a waitress at a nearby restaurant. She worked double shifts and worked extra hard just so I can come here. My face turned red from embarrassment but I laughed. My mom always knew how to make me laugh no matter what mood I was in. I stop laughing and I look to see that my mother was laughing with me but still on the ground doing weird things with her arms. I give her a little to signal that is enough. I didn't want anyone to see my mother acting all crazy and thinking that I am crazy too. She gets the signal and stands up while brushing herself off. She opens the trunk and grabs my stuff. It was just a big suitcase and a guitar case with a guitar. She handed me everything while being careful. The guitar that is mine now was Sarah’s. I remember when I first put my small fingers on the smooth blue wood of the guitar. When I was younger, every night in the middle of the night she would wake me up and take me to her room. She would play me a song that she would add a little bit each night. And sometimes she would show me and teach me how to play. I knew how to play by the time I was 6 but I never had a guitar for myself. My parents would have never gotten me a guitar but my sister had saved up all her money and went out and bought a guitar without my parents' permission. My parents could have taken it away from her but they knew how hard she worked for it. They told her that she can keep the guitar as long as she keeps her focus on school and not fully on music. Guess there's no problem with that now. I also haven't seen her guitar for years. I am honestly scared to look at it and have all the memories flood over me. “No matter what happens this summer just know I love you!” I knew exactly what she meant by this. I drop my stuff and run over to wrap my hands around her shoulders. my mom waits a second before wrapping her hands around me. I soon felt her chin rest of my shoulder. her hug felt warm and comfortable. I could feel the water pushing to come out. But I forced them to stay. I didn’t want anyone to see me crying on my first day not to mention my mom just did a weird dance in front of the welcome sign. My mom and I have been very close since the divorce and my sister. This was going to be away from my mom for more than a day. Not to mention, I won’t see her for months! I was already feeling homesick by knowing that I won’t see her. Although the camp allows phones during certain times it won't be the same. She pulls away but then putting her hands on my shoulders. She looks at me with a smile. She wipes a tear that must've slipped out before saying, “Oh, I have something to give you!” She pulls her arms away and reaches into her purse. She pulls out her rainbow wallet. It was overloaded with receipts. She pulls out a wrinkled and folded till it could fold no more piece of paper. My mother puts her wallet back into her purse and unfolds the piece of paper carefully. Once she opens it all the way she stares at the photo. She then hands it to me. “I have kept this thing in my wallet since we moved to our house. And now that you are going to camp and stuff I want you to have it. I pause to look at her, taking in all the words she had poured onto me. I then look at the photo to see us. My whole family. It was on our last vacation together as one happy family. We had gone to Disney World. In the photo, there was my father wearing a mickey mouse hat and some sunglasses. He was also holding an ice cream cone with a lot of ice cream on top. Chocolate. The chocolate ice cream was my father's favorite ice cream and I bet it was Chocolate. The more I stared at the photo the more memories came to my head. I remember right after that photo was taken he was walking to get the camera back when his ice cream falls over and landed right on top of my face. I got ice cream everywhere. Although it sounds bad, I loved it. I got to just lick the ice cream off my face. My whole family laughed when I had tried to get the ice cream off my nose. My father also had his arm around my mother was wearing a big summer hat that held all her inside. She was wearing round sunglasses.and was in the middle of licking her ice cream. I assumed she was eating Cookies N Cream, it was her favorite thing ever. I could tell that she was laughing about how embarrassing it was to take a picture right in the middle. Below her was my sister. She had straight black hair like my dad. My sister and I had looked nothing alike and seemed more like best friends. I am told that I looked at my mom and my sister looked like my father. Sarah had her hair in pretty french braids that ended at hip. Now my sister’s favorite is different than my whole family. My whole family has something chocolate in there's besides Sarah. I had loved Blueberry Sarah loved blueberry so much that she would dip chicken nuggets in blueberry sauce. I tried it and it was nasty. My sister was weird just like me. On the left of my sis was me. I had my arm around my sister’s shoulders and was having Moose Tracks ice cream. My hair was just passed my shoulder braids french braided. My mother was the best at french braiding and she would do it every time I asked. She loved playing with our hair also. I pull the photo closer to my chest. I could feel the tears trying to crawl out but I forced them to stay in. My mom comes over to hug me. My body started to tremble and then the tears start pouring out. She rubs my back the same way she did when we found out about Sarah. “It’s going to be all right!” she whispers in my ear. I pull away knowing I can’t cry all day and that I was probably embarrassing myself. I rub my eyes trying to get rid of the tears.
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