Tuesday, May 5, 2009

The Good Ol'Days....we like to think so, anyway...


Memories are such a funny thing…they evoke emotion, and sometimes are so crisp you can close your eyes and convince your other senses to play along. The broken parts of things that I remember are so random…what sandwich I had in Spain as a small girl, sitting in a cafĂ© and peering out a window that overlooked a plaza or courtyard…one which I’m sure I should know. I remember a flock of tiny lambs hop, hop, hopping over some rocks, following me. I was 5, at most. I saw the changing of the Guard, but that’s more faint in my memory than some dreams I had around the same time. The lambs however, are very real…like it was yesterday. As was the snail…my pet snail in Spain who followed me on a long walk. My mother wouldn’t allow it to ride home on the plane. That’s about all I remember from the 2 week excursion with Mom and Betty. Awful, isn’t it? The snail and lambs could have happened on the cape….and saved a few grand.


Can anyone explain that phenomenon? I find it bazaar. My mother tells me all these things we did and I can’t recall so much at all and yet I remember minor, insignificant things…


So, this leads me to wonder what my kids will remember. Will the memories be deep, strong and lively? Or will they remember when I snapped at them in the car for interrupting, rather than that I attended every practice and game, and helped the coaches determine the final schedule from the overall one? Will they have more shared memories or will the facts be mired in fluff and frosting that even the things they do together as a family all feel so different to each of them?


I think sometimes the silly stuff I try to “make” matter, just won’t. And the stuff that is-what-it-is, is what sticks with them….The time Mom burned the roast or left the spaghetti sauce on the stove for 24 hours on low heat. Or the time the washer blew up and left putrid water all over the floor. And the day Joe fell off the railings of the gazebo and hurt his ribs, then fell into an old-school, in-ground garbage container when someone popped the lid open just as he ran across it and nearly broke his leg. Within a few more hours, his hand was closed in Dad’s car door of the caddy. He escaped very serious injury each time, that he had no business escaping. Now, will he recall the fact that clearly he needed to be better supervised, (well, no kidding) or will he remember the humility of needing help again…or will he remember the warmth, affection and feel-better hugs from Mom or Daddy? Or will he just remember that he was “accident prone”…which prompts Mom to constantly remind him that he needs to think-first!!