SLP 2 Writing about Issues and using Third person - Essay Example

Children’s palace 9 July I used to live in Seattle near Lake Washington. I worked full-time, and I was blessed to have some family members as my neighbors. I remember my sixty-seven-year-old Aunt Hilda. Her husband died, when she was just in her thirties, and she never married again. She had one child only, Jessiel, and she works as a social worker in Toronto, Canada. My children were between the ages of two to five years old then. I left them at Aunt Hilda’s during the day, and sometimes, even during the weekends, when I have extra work.

I thought they would hate me for abandoning them this way, but there was something so magnetizing about Aunt Hilda and her yellow house, something that makes her the second mother of all children of whoever leaves their children there. She has a canary yellow, two-story house, with a large tree house at her expansive, meadow-like backyard, which goes right to the woods. All I know is that for many children, her house is a palace stripped from an adventure book. Aunt Hilda’s house smelled like the perfect parent’s house, where something good was always cooking.

She is a great and efficient cook, so her house smelled like different food at different times of the day. In the morning, it smelled like eggs, cereal, pancakes, and maple syrup. Sometimes, at my children’s special request, brown-sugared cinnamon bread rolls dominated the atmosphere. At noon, it smelled like baked chicken, or fried beef, or anything else simmering in her kitchen. In the mid-afternoon, it often smelled like chocolate chip cookies and fresh milk. She gets a large bottle of fresh cow milk everyday from a nearby farm.

By supper, scents of salad, olive oil, and roasted chicken filled my nostrils. I asked Aunt Hilda how she manages to cook and to keep her house in order all the time. She said: “Well, it’s all about time management. I tell the kids what not to do and to do, or else I won’t have time to cook their favorite stuff and they obey me like good pups.” Then she laughed. She laughs so heartily, so from the heart. I always love her more when I hear her laugh.Breakfast is often chaotic for other families, but not at Aunt Hilda’s.

She wakes up at four A.M. to clean up the house and to prepare breakfast. She sleeps by 10 PM. My husband and I eat there during breakfast. I make sure to give Aunt Hilda money every week for food, since she feeds my children most of the time, or I do the grocery for her. She has a large pension, so she did not have to work. She also has a simple life, and she does not to spend on luxury goods. She does not even have a car, because she rarely leaves her house. Another cousin of mine leaves her three children with Aunt Hilda.

We eat together, all eight or nine of us, like a big happy family. Of course, the kids are always noisy and sometimes they play with their food. But when Aunt Hilda tells them to behave, they follow her. I made a joke at her once that maybe she puts something in her cooking that hypnotizes the kids. She answered: “Yes, lots of sprinkles of love and kisses.” And the children would giggle and roll their eyes. During 3 to 4 PM, Aunt Hilda imposes nap time. Children hate nap time. But in her house, everyone naps that time, including her.

One time, I arrived at around that time, and I forgot that they took a nap during this time. I felt eerily alone when I entered the house, where normally I hear gallops of running and laughing. The wind blew at my face when I entered the house. The back door was open and scents of leaves and logs penetrated my nose. Then, chocolate cookie sweetness prevailed, as I checked the kitchen. I could still see some leftovers. I went right up and checked the bedrooms, and I saw that all of them were sleeping.

Aunt Hilda slept with Mimmie’s arm around her. Her bedroom is just like her- warm and loving. Family pictures sprayed her walls. Two medical kits are on the drawer. She has two large cabinets. Recipe books are beside suspense thriller novels from Dean Koontz and Stephen King. She has numerous books considered as classics, like novels from Charlotte Bronte, Louisa May Alcott, Kate Chopin, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shakespeare. I know she read her novels at night, before she went to sleep. She stirred, saw me, and went back to sleep.

She needed her rest, so I left. Aunt Hilda’s insists that all birthdays are spent in her house. Since she has a large backyard, we only have to rent chairs, tables, and utensils. One time, it is her birthday, and we celebrated it with a little more than 100 other family members and friends. Aunt Hilda and two other cook assistants prepared and cooked all the food. We had a lunchtime party. She served Teriyaki beef and lettuce cups, cocktail meatballs, grilled lemon chicken, grilled tilapia wrapped in banana leaves, citrus pork chops, and brown rice.

For dessert, she served fresh and cold mango and watermelon slices and chocolate and vanilla cupcakes. For drinks, she made fresh lemonade juice and cold brewed iced tea. I loved that birthday party, because most of the family was there. I could feel the love flowing for Aunt Hilda, who at many points of our lives had touched us and our children’s. She looked glowing at sixty-two years old. She gave a short speech and said: “Thank you for coming and being with me. I love you all. And yes, I will live to two hundred, if you will love me until that day.

” Suffice to say, we all cried after her speech.Aunt Hilda died last year. She died while sleeping. She had some problems with her cough, but she never had it checked up with a doctor. In her will, she gave her property to her daughter, but asked her to not sell it, and instead, she was instructed to rent it out to a family member, so that the property with so many memories can stay with the clan. Jessiel leased the house to one of my cousins, Letty, who is amazingly similar to Aunt Hilda in numerous ways.

She works as an event organizer, and she cooks like crazy, like our Aunt. Her kids are already all teenagers, but since she works at home, some of our relatives leave their children with her at day, sometimes at night, for those who work at graveyard shift. Every now and then, I visit her, and I can smell Aunt Hilda’s cooking and see the loving memories she left behind.