A Memory, A Whisper

My daughter, too, has grown. Her legs stretch a little farther down the length of the bed. I see a small foot poking out over the side. I’m reminded of when she was just a small ball of baby gooeyness. Now, she is a big girl and reminds me often.

As I walk quietly back to my room, I can’t stop the memories from flooding my head. They fill every nook and cranny. They engulf me. I almost stagger under their weight. For a minute I wallow in it. I relish the picture show behind my eyes. I see it almost as a slide projection that spans from birth until now. And then I wonder how I will live without every single ones of these memories.

I can’t expect to memorize everything. Already things are starting to fade. I have to stretch to recall an exact date, a moment of time, some marvel that eludes me. I take pictures, hundreds of pictures, just hoping it will stick, make the story clearer. How can they just grow up, leave me behind with nothing. So I guard my heart because I can’t save my memories.

They are getting older, inevitably, new memories will fix themselves tightly, momentarily, and somewhere along the way I will forget other bits and pieces. I will forget the exact day that my son chose to walk, in front of an audience, proud. I will forget the first time my daughter sang, sweetly garbling the words but expressively rendering them nonetheless. These things will be faint traces across my brain, hazy, but forming the basis of my unconditional and overwhelming love for them.