My memory

The older I become, the more memory I have.

Memory is a reward for hanging around, a compensation for a body that is beginning to show its age.

Bad memories aren't as bad and good memories are sweeter than they were when they first occured, when neither bad or good events had yet become memories.

When I talk to my brother or an old friend about the past, the past seems to be happening again but in calmer, less ominous versions. We laugh a lot about things that once made us angry or cry. Tragedies are tolerable, and the faults of others often quite humorous.

At this point, I don't know what I'd do without my memory. It's making its own little world, where I'm responsible for keeping the loved ones I've lost alive. I actually like remembering people as they were, it's no big deal--they behave well and are as light as feathers.

Almost every day in my memory, I catch of glimspe of my mother. It's not really her I'm seeing, but a field of flowers or a wave in the ocean. I see her but she doesn't see me. I love her so much, but she's not my mother anymore.

I'm currently working on the memories I have of my father, whose own life was cut short and who resists memorialization to this day.