I found a new little bit of the internet to read, and I’m really liking the content and writing style. Recently, this blogger answered the question: “If you were going to get amnesia and could only have one memory to take with you, what would it be?” She challenged her readers to do the same.
This is a really, really hard question for me. I’m sure it is for many people. I have some great memories that are significant in different ways. I don’t have one memory (like a wedding – which was a popular answer) that involves the various groups of people in my life. I remember how great it felt to graduate from college. I remember the many times my friends and I laughed at one of our antics. I remember seeing babies for the first time and finding them perfect examples of what is good in the world.
When I started thinking about this, one memory kept pushing itself to the surface like the know-it-all in second grade who wants to answer every single question in math class – the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend 2004. Where’d that come from? It’s not exactly a serene, happy memory. It’s bittersweet and it hurts to think about for too long. If I were going to get amnesia, though, wouldn’t I want to remember the good with the bad, remember that with great love also comes great sadness?
My favorite aunt (and I’m not afraid of hurting my other aunts’ feelings by saying this, I think they probably know) was diagnosed with cancer in April of 2004 – about this time, actually. She’d had cancer, before, when I was a little kid. She recovered from that with seemingly no lasting effects. In my own self-absorbed 24-year old self way, I kind of figured it would be the same thing, again. Yeah, sure, it sucked, but it would turn out alright in the end. I should have seen the worry and fear in the women’s eyes, though – my mom’s, my aunt’s, her daughter’s.
The cancer advanced rapidly. By the middle of May, it was pretty evident that my aunt would not be well for a very long time. My brain answers, “If ever,” but I’m not sure I thought that, then. I remember when the decision was made that she wouldn’t be able to attend my sister’s wedding, when I learned that she’d stopped working on her wedding gift quilt. That’s when reality set in for me. She wouldn’t do either of those things by choice.
Even though the whole family had just been together at the wedding, we organized a good old fashioned family barbecue. All but the farthest-away members of the family came (and we missed those folks and talked about missing them). Our family events never just include family, though. There’s a huge extended family and there are always family friends that we really treat like family. This barbecue was a huge event and it was held at my aunt and uncle’s house near my family’s hometown (which is closer to a bend in the road than a town, these days).
I remember the day as being beautiful. It was a typical spring day in Kentucky. The grass was green, the flower garden blooming, the sky a pretty shade of blue, and the smell from the barbecue good enough to make a vegetarian’s mouth water. My cousin had just started summer baseball and I played catch with him. The little girls and I drew their names on the sidewalk with chalk. There were people all around the yard sitting and reminiscing, or breaking into laughter, or quietly drinking it all into their memory. All in all, it was a glorious day filled with people that I love. We all were having a good time, even though we could tell that my aunt was tired and there was a ball of dread in each of our stomachs.
We took big family photos. There were lots of takes and none of them are perfect – someone’s eyes are closed, one of the kids is looking the wrong way – but they all show how we felt that day. Some of our eyes are tired, but all of our smiles and hugs are genuine. The one memory I’d want to keep is the memory of that day and those smiles. That memory hangs in the front room of my house and I pass it, each day, remembering what it was like to be my aunt’s niece.
As it turns out, the next big family get-together was my aunt’s funeral in early July. It, too, was a beautiful day – one that I’d rather wish hadn’t happened than remember – but one that I doubt even amnesia would erase.
