Dept. of Memory
Friday, 29 October 2021 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaffy_rEight Years
Not today; two days ago. Eight years ago on the 27th, Mum died. The fact that I forgot it until late yesterday threw me for a bit of a loop, with a tiny part of me suggesting that this somehow made me a bad daughter. I'm not, and that tiny part of me got swatted pretty hard in my head, retreating to some corner of my consciousness that houses the rest of my ancient and moth-eaten Baptist instincts.
Still I wondered at my forgetting. Forgetting is not a thing I do, or at least not something I do easily. I hoard my memories, even the ones I've remembered so much, so hard, so repeatedly, that they're worn smooth as glass, and possibly no longer memories. Perhaps they're just stories now.
Do I remember Mum, or do I remember a memory of her? It's not the same thing. But could it be as worthy a way of honoring her? If she's become smooth as glass, perhaps a little translucent, like small and rounded Fundy-washed quartz pebbles, is that perhaps not so bad?
Yeah, it's at least a little bad.
She was my mother. She is my Mum. She will always be my mother. And she was more than my mother. She was Mary Glen, and she had thoughts and loves and a life apart from me, and apart from what I thought she was or wanted her to be. That's as it should be.
So, try to remember the real woman, Kathy. She deserves it.
I'll see her again someday, and I want to be able to tell her I did the right thing by her.
Not today; two days ago. Eight years ago on the 27th, Mum died. The fact that I forgot it until late yesterday threw me for a bit of a loop, with a tiny part of me suggesting that this somehow made me a bad daughter. I'm not, and that tiny part of me got swatted pretty hard in my head, retreating to some corner of my consciousness that houses the rest of my ancient and moth-eaten Baptist instincts.
Still I wondered at my forgetting. Forgetting is not a thing I do, or at least not something I do easily. I hoard my memories, even the ones I've remembered so much, so hard, so repeatedly, that they're worn smooth as glass, and possibly no longer memories. Perhaps they're just stories now.
Do I remember Mum, or do I remember a memory of her? It's not the same thing. But could it be as worthy a way of honoring her? If she's become smooth as glass, perhaps a little translucent, like small and rounded Fundy-washed quartz pebbles, is that perhaps not so bad?
Yeah, it's at least a little bad.
She was my mother. She is my Mum. She will always be my mother. And she was more than my mother. She was Mary Glen, and she had thoughts and loves and a life apart from me, and apart from what I thought she was or wanted her to be. That's as it should be.
So, try to remember the real woman, Kathy. She deserves it.
I'll see her again someday, and I want to be able to tell her I did the right thing by her.
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Date: Sunday, 31 October 2021 03:56 pm (UTC)