Making Memories Without Mom
Create memories, your gentle request each time I left the house.
Each life event, you taught me, was another opportunity for never-forgotten experiences.
Yet, as I progress onward in life without
You,
I find myself left with nothing but our memories together that
get more difficult to recall with time
You,
the most influential person in my life
are but a collection of 15-second video clips in my mind
every day harder to rewind, constantly robbed of time
and a plethora of life lessons, many not fully realized until after
your death.
An adoring hug full of hairspray and perfume
A caring word of advice for an event to happen soon
A swift you'd better straighten up outside of a classroom
That time you wouldn't stop holding me when I felt such gloom
The soft smile and look of pride when I enter a room
Brief silhouettes, small
representations of large realities.
Mere collections of 15-second video clips in my mind.
I've been robbed of so much time.
And it makes me wonder: if life is about
Creating memories, why are the memories so
short and fleeting?
Why can't we have greater control over them?
Why must I remember the day of
your death.
So vividly, in such perfect detail
but struggle to remember all the wonderful memories that are
You?
Everything good about me is because of
You
Yet I struggle to remember all the details of the good times with
You
I'm left with remembering a feeling that I had when
You
would comfort me, after I had done something ridiculous to
mess up my life. I don't even recall how you managed to get me back on track,
only that you always did -
And I value your lesson about making memories and
I truly attempt to live my life to the fullest, yet,
As I create beautiful memories marrying my wife and
raising my son, a memory floods my brain about how you
always wanted to be a grandma, and I would trade in all the
15-second videos stored in my mind to create these new memories with
You.
And today, this Mothers Day, the video clips have become more than symbolic
I sit with a literal outdated form of visual media
being played on an outdated form of technology, which came from an old
and dusty basement where it had been lost for so long, and I know for a fact
that a digitized version of your face and voice is somewhere to be found on this tape
if I could only get the damn thing to work correctly, and I weep and punch my bed,
exclaiming, we took these videos because they said we could capture a memory forever,
and the anger forces a realization:
no matter how well a tool is built, a memory made, a life lived,
everything is eventually lost or
Dead.
And if we are lucky enough to find that which is lost, it may not be
as we left it.
Is that a reason to give up on making memories?
I know your answer, mom:
Make so many that your consciousness overflows with them.
Some days your words lovingly haunt
me, Create Memories.
Despite my resistance, life has gone on without you.
I miss you.
Your ashes sit on my fireplace. I continue.
Thank you so much for reading my heart in poetic form. Living without my mom has been a difficult journey, and I have written an article that accompanies this poem. Have you lost someone close to you? Don't be silent. I'd love to hear your thoughts. You'd be shocked at the therapeutic effect of sharing your thoughts with an electronic device, knowing there is a human reading them who can relate.
