Before leaving, Chester turned around to have a last look at the little house where he had been living the past 5 years. It wasn’t very much but he got fond of it. He could smell the scent of the roses that he himself had planted and it brought back memories of his childhood. His mother extracted oil from the rosebuds and she used it always as a perfume.
He didn’t remember much of the first house he lived in. Only that it was very small until his family had enough to afford a bigger house. Although, their new house wasn’t very big either. His parents had decided not to have any more children because of his mother’s first difficult pregnancy.
How happy had he been those first years of his childhood! His father was a doctor in medicine and spent a long time studying because he wanted to be a surgeon.
His mother used to play with him at anything he wanted. Together they tried to trap beautiful insects that they would set free afterwards. Chester wanted to keep them but his mother convinced him that these beings would die soon if they were kept in a closed pot.
His father told him more than once to leave his mother in peace because she got tired very quickly. Chester was aware that his mother’s health was delicate. She used to cough often and she looked so pale. Even her lips looked kind of blue.
Certain moment his dad became famous in his branch, even celebrities used his services when they were in need of transplantation of kidneys, heart or liver. Everybody knew about the famous Doctor Hemmingway.
He was the kind of man who didn’t want to do plastic surgery. That would have made him really a rich man. He only did these kinds of operations when it was to help people who had been deformed due to accidents. He always helped when he could but he wasn’t looking to earn “easy money”, doing plastic surgery for those who wanted to have a nicer looking body.
He surely wasn’t a millionaire but they had enough money to live a life without problems.
Chester remembered that his parents were very happy together.
His mother spent all her time looking after her husband and son. Yes, definitely, he had a very good childhood until he was about 8 years old.
He remembered that his father was bothering a lot about his mother’s cough.
She was resting practically during the whole day.
Hemmingway decided to take her to hospital the day after but….
She woke up and thought that perhaps eating something she would feel better. Then she felt that she was losing control because her legs didn’t support her weight anymore. While screaming for her husband she fainted.
Father and son woke up and went rapidly to the living room but there was nothing they could do but look how she died.
Hemmingway tried to keep his composure but it was impossible.
She was buried between her roses. That was the place she loved. After the funeral nothing was the same for father and son.
There was no joy anymore on Chester’s face. He was too serious for his age.
The boy had nightmares and often he didn´t want to go to bed out of fear for the bad dreams.
His father let him sleep with him in the big bed but in spite of that, the boy didn’t sleep enough. He started having problems at school and though his father helped him with his homework, that didn’t do much. Hemmingway could not even help himself since his wife died.
He missed her so much that he left his work in hospital and he listed in the “Doctors without frontiers”. He thought that working under extreme circumstances would help him forget his terrible loss.
He explained it to Chester and the boy said: “yes dad, I understand” but that wasn’t the truth. Chester did not understand why his father went away leaving him with an elder lady to take care of him.
People admired his father even more than before.
With more “downs” than “ups” he passed the years of his childhood.
Without problems he passed his years as a teenager. Every month he received a letter of his father.
A few days after his 18 birthday, he received a horrible message.
To be continued…
From Sims to Real Life 