The Color Yellow

It’s a Monday morning, seven a.m. Traffic is piled up and spreads over one kilometer in either direction. “I’m going to be so late for school mom.” I say, glancing over to the driver’s seat of our Chrysler Voyager. A beat up, yellow car spitting out dark clouds of smoke comes to a stop in the lane beside us. “Look mom!” I shout eagerly. “It’s just like the car pappou had.”

The sight of this yellow car instantly delivers me to my childhood. Memories of my pappou and I on a Sunday afternoon, driving in his yellow range rover with worn out, brown leather seats. The scent of leather lingered throughout his car and to this day still takes me back to my fondest memories with him. Memories of him telling me all about his favorite cars and all the amazing gadgets they had.

However, these fond childhood memories came to an abrupt end in the November of 2008. I was just seven years old and my recollection of the events are chopped up into a handful of sporadic memories and a whole lot of heartache.

I was playing in the back garden of my yiayia and pappou’s house when my mom returned home from work. We sat at their dining room table, eating lunch, when the doorbell rang. My father, uncle and cousin were at the door with a look of pure shock and devastation on their faces. The atmosphere instantly became ominous when my cousin approached me.

“Come with me Katy.” He said calmly. “Let’s play outside. Our parents have something important to speak about.” The fact that I was not supposed to hear the “important” conversation only made me more curious. I pressed my face onto the cold window overlooking the lounge. Their speech was muffled but I could see that sadness and disbelief hung over the room like a dark cloud. I watched my yiayia as she threw her hands up to the heavens and flung herself into my uncle’s arms, but I still couldn’t hear what was being said. I could see her lips moving but there was no sound. It seemed as if the volume of the scene I watched through the window had been muted.

My mother joined us outside as she wiped the tears from her face and cleared her throat. “Katy.” She said with a quivering voice. “As you know, life doesn’t go on forever and sometimes bad things happen to good people.” I had no idea where this conversation was going but I listened attentively. “Something bad happened today and pappou got hurt. He’s moved on to a better place.” Her voice broke and she immediately dissolved into tears.

Thinking back, I never fully understood that he had “moved on” The concept of loss and death was foreign to me. Something I had never experienced before and something I never wanted to experience again. It was a period of pain and confusion, especially for my yiayia.

She lived in a foreign country that spoke a foreign language and one of the only people who made her feel at home and who she could relate to was gone. Their paths had crossed in sunny South Africa when my yiayia fled Egypt to escape civil unrest and my pappou, dared to leave Greece and explore deep dark Africa with nothing but a single suitcase and the clothes on his back. Fate had bought them together and gave them forty-two happy years together and that same fate separated them once again.

There is a blank in my memory between this day and the day of the funeral. I remember sitting in the back of the limousine, dressed in black from head to toe and surrounded by my grieving family. I remember thinking how much my pappou would adore this peculiar car. I remember wishing I could tell him all about it, but that would be impossible. There was a barrier between us now, a limiting factor between heaven and earth.

Days later, back at my yiayia’s house, there was a debate on what should be done with my pappou’s yellow range rover. It was too painful to see it deteriorate in the garage and too painful to let it go, a catch twenty-two. I remember staring at the yellow paint job while my mind wandered. This radiant color, a symbol of hope for the future. Hope to move on but never forget. A bright light amidst all the darkness and it still reminds me of him. I see him in the bright afternoon sun and in the daffodils in my back garden.

An ear penetrating hoot brings me back to reality and back to my car ride to school. I turn up the volume of the car radio and “Jolene” by Dolly Parton plays. His favorite song.