Yesterday my husband and I sat holding hands, watching friends of ours exchange vows. Their voices shaky, smiles that that spoke of happiness yet to come. I turned to my husband and said, "I barely remember our wedding our wedding day, let alone our vows" He just smiled, and replied "do you really think they are going to remember every detail in a few years?" Good point, probably not. There are those moments that we are cursed to remember, every sickening detail, like labour and delivery, our first broken heart, or the thousand other things you'd give anything to forget.
Unfortunately we are also forced to come to grips with the cruel reality that there are the moments we gather and tuck away, our precious memories. We place them in small little silk lined boxes, and slip them under our beds to treasure later, only to find that when we take them out, something is missing, they are no longer the same or they are all together gone. Only a tiny glimmer of what they once were often remains.
When you have children this becomes so much more real. The loss of memories so sweet. The moments we swore we would never, could never forget. The feelings experienced the first time you held the child you'd just given birth to, looked into their eyes and asked, "remember me?".
Memories of the way our babies smelled, the way they felt, warm against our naked chests. They're gone. Sometimes I close my eyes and try to remember. I can hold onto pieces of them, but for the most part they've faded , almost unrecognizable.
I find the older I get I create memories. They are similar to the reality of what passed, but not entirely. I forget parts, so I recreate, and these become my new memories. My childhood, an old home, a friend, a loved one, the feeling I had about the experience of my life. None are safe from the creativity of my mind.
Now things take place, special things, birthdays, anniversaries, quiet shared moments, and I have to pause myself and ask, will I remember?
2 comments:
I wish I could remember things like they really happened..and I pray I will remember what is actually happening today. Scary thing,,, e
When I was young, I travelled, mostly by myself, through Europe. When I was in France I met a young American guy, on a trip before he started university at Harvard. We had lots of fun together.
One memorable day we went to Versailles together. I snapped and snapped and snapped photos. I was in awe of every decadent thing.
David (the Harvard boy) who never carried a camera anywhere, finally said to me, "Why don't you put that down? How can you really see this and experience this now if you're only looking at it through a lens so that you can look at it tomorrow?"
He was right of course. I'd just never seen it that way before.
Ultimately, does it matter if what you remember is factual?
Versailles was beautiful, and I have the pictures to prove it. But what I carry with me from that day in the French country side has nothing to do with my glossy photos. It has to do with the real, sweet, funny, wonderful memories I have of that day, and the young man who taught me to look more with my heart than with my eyes.
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