Memory
Memory: What do you want to remember? What do you wish you could forget?
I want to remember your hugs. Those squishy, strong sister hugs. Those hugs that were like no other, those hugs that immediately signaled to me that I was in a familiar place bursting with love. Those hugs that said everything, that were everything.
I want to remember your laugh. The sweet sound of your voice. The way your hair would hang in wisps across your face.
I want to remember what it felt like every time we came back together. The sweet anticipation of every visit, knowing that seester time was about to commence. The giddy excitement of it all when we were reunited each time, running towards each other with hugs, settling into a familiarity that was decades old, getting ready to commence days’ worth of our secret language.
I want to remember the little moments: eating corn on the cob on your porch, making guacamole in Dad’s kitchen, lighting sparklers on the 4th of July. Playing and singing music together in your house. The way I always felt in your living room, wood stove burning, looking around at a space that had your mark all over it, and wishing my house felt more like yours -- simple, warm, inviting, natural, never fussy, never with anything to prove.
I want to remember how we jumped in the pool together as girls, how we sat poolside with melting popsicles. How we spent our afternoons and summers as latchkey kids watching “Saved by the Bell” and country music videos on CMT. How we fought, and then came back together. How we bickered and then laughed. How I locked you out of the house one time, dancing in front of the glass door in my socks to mock you, only to slip and fall and crawl to the door, asking you for help (oh, the humility of that moment).
I want to remember how sweet you were with my kids, how devoted. How you played with them, how you laughed with them, how they sat on your lap. How you put together the most fun and thoughtful care packages for birthdays and Christmas and Halloween and Easter filled with books and candy and fun items you found at The Dollar Store or the dollar bin at Target.
I want to remember wheeling you around Target in your wheelchair after your surgery, your lap piled high with a ridiculous number of items, and oh how we laughed and laughed. We always laughed, even when it was hard. Even when life broke our hearts. I always want to remember that.
As for what I wish I could forget?
Nothing. I don’t want to forget anything. It all feels like part of you, part of your story, even though the ending was nothing that any of us ever wanted. I don’t want to forget or give up any of the pieces of you.
Instead of what I want to forget, here’s what I want to forgive:
I want to forgive myself for all the times you sent me messages or links to things you thought I might like and then I overlooked them, ignored them, or didn’t click on the links. I know now that it was your way of connecting, even though sometimes it felt like you were speaking another language, even though I often became overwhelmed and impatient and frustrated by it because I couldn’t adapt and couldn’t accept as quickly as you could.
I want to forgive myself for anything I could have done to advocate more for you, to sit with you through the hard things, to talk about the hard stuff. We did that, and then we didn’t, and I never knew where you were, never knew what your brain could handle or understand. If there were things unsaid that you needed to say, if you needed a safe person to say those things to and I somehow communicated that I wasn’t available for that, I am so sorry.
I want to forgive myself for all of the times I became impatient with you -- when your short-term memory failed, when you stopped advocating for yourself, when you stopped understanding what was happening to you but I didn’t realize it yet.
I want to forgive myself for not responding to the last letter that you sent me, for not letting myself really feel and understand that it was your way of saying goodbye. I want to forgive myself for not writing back right away -- for always putting it on the list of things to do later, because I thought I still had years to do that. I wish I had answered right away.
I want to forgive myself for thinking there was more time. I wish I had visited more. I wish I had tried harder to connect in those last few years when communication and connection became harder and harder for you. I wish I had found it sooner -- that space where we found each other without needing all of those old things, all those old words, all those old ways of being. I missed the signals for how to get there for so long. I’m so glad that I was finally able to meet you there, that I finally figured it out, that we could be in that space together. I’ll be forever grateful that I found it just in time.
I want to remember your hugs. Those squishy, strong sister hugs. Those hugs that were like no other, those hugs that immediately signaled to me that I was in a familiar place bursting with love. Those hugs that said everything, that were everything.
I want to remember your laugh. The sweet sound of your voice. The way your hair would hang in wisps across your face.
I want to remember what it felt like every time we came back together. The sweet anticipation of every visit, knowing that seester time was about to commence. The giddy excitement of it all when we were reunited each time, running towards each other with hugs, settling into a familiarity that was decades old, getting ready to commence days’ worth of our secret language.
I want to remember the little moments: eating corn on the cob on your porch, making guacamole in Dad’s kitchen, lighting sparklers on the 4th of July. Playing and singing music together in your house. The way I always felt in your living room, wood stove burning, looking around at a space that had your mark all over it, and wishing my house felt more like yours -- simple, warm, inviting, natural, never fussy, never with anything to prove.
I want to remember how we jumped in the pool together as girls, how we sat poolside with melting popsicles. How we spent our afternoons and summers as latchkey kids watching “Saved by the Bell” and country music videos on CMT. How we fought, and then came back together. How we bickered and then laughed. How I locked you out of the house one time, dancing in front of the glass door in my socks to mock you, only to slip and fall and crawl to the door, asking you for help (oh, the humility of that moment).
I want to remember how sweet you were with my kids, how devoted. How you played with them, how you laughed with them, how they sat on your lap. How you put together the most fun and thoughtful care packages for birthdays and Christmas and Halloween and Easter filled with books and candy and fun items you found at The Dollar Store or the dollar bin at Target.
I want to remember wheeling you around Target in your wheelchair after your surgery, your lap piled high with a ridiculous number of items, and oh how we laughed and laughed. We always laughed, even when it was hard. Even when life broke our hearts. I always want to remember that.
As for what I wish I could forget?
Nothing. I don’t want to forget anything. It all feels like part of you, part of your story, even though the ending was nothing that any of us ever wanted. I don’t want to forget or give up any of the pieces of you.
Instead of what I want to forget, here’s what I want to forgive:
I want to forgive myself for all the times you sent me messages or links to things you thought I might like and then I overlooked them, ignored them, or didn’t click on the links. I know now that it was your way of connecting, even though sometimes it felt like you were speaking another language, even though I often became overwhelmed and impatient and frustrated by it because I couldn’t adapt and couldn’t accept as quickly as you could.
I want to forgive myself for anything I could have done to advocate more for you, to sit with you through the hard things, to talk about the hard stuff. We did that, and then we didn’t, and I never knew where you were, never knew what your brain could handle or understand. If there were things unsaid that you needed to say, if you needed a safe person to say those things to and I somehow communicated that I wasn’t available for that, I am so sorry.
I want to forgive myself for all of the times I became impatient with you -- when your short-term memory failed, when you stopped advocating for yourself, when you stopped understanding what was happening to you but I didn’t realize it yet.
I want to forgive myself for not responding to the last letter that you sent me, for not letting myself really feel and understand that it was your way of saying goodbye. I want to forgive myself for not writing back right away -- for always putting it on the list of things to do later, because I thought I still had years to do that. I wish I had answered right away.
I want to forgive myself for thinking there was more time. I wish I had visited more. I wish I had tried harder to connect in those last few years when communication and connection became harder and harder for you. I wish I had found it sooner -- that space where we found each other without needing all of those old things, all those old words, all those old ways of being. I missed the signals for how to get there for so long. I’m so glad that I was finally able to meet you there, that I finally figured it out, that we could be in that space together. I’ll be forever grateful that I found it just in time.