The Burden of Memory

I want to tell you a story
That has nothing to do with
What you think
I'm going to talk about

It's something that happened two years ago
And it involves my husband

He died

Suddenly

It was very--well, it was sudden, I guess
I don't know what else to...

Anyway, we have a son
Oliver
And Oliver was five
And his father died

And that's what happened

But that's not the story

The story has to do with everyday since
That's what you realize
Two years later
Piecing together this terrible time in your life
That seems as short as a city street
When really it's an eight miles of unpaved country road

Oliver was five
He's seven now
And he's...

Forgetting things

And I'm faced with a choice
Separate and different
From all the other choices
I've faced
Since the day I came home
And found my husband
Face-down on the kitchen floor

The choice is this:

How much do I let my son forget?

Obviously I don't want him to forget his father
But how much of his father
Can I let him remember
Without it continuing to hurt him?

What is the line
Between a painful memory
And a fond remembrance?

When he asks me questions
How detailed should the answers be?

When he wants to talk about death
Should I encourage him or is that morbid?

Am I preventing him from being a child
By dealing with everything so bluntly?

I left all the photos up
Because I know you're supposed to do that
But then Oliver took them down

I woke up one morning
And he had taken down all the photos
And put them in the hall closet
Under one of my winter coats

I didn't ask him why he did it
I knew why he did it
I wanted to do it for the same reason, I'd imagine

--Because it's hard

It's hard to look at his father
And not feel like...

Like the wounds are all still fresh

Maybe my son wants to forget a little
Am I wrong for wanting to let him do that?

The truth is...

I want to forget

Not everything, but...

Just a chest full of things would be nice
To keep, I mean
A few memories here and there
But...

I could condense
I could compartmentalize
I could...

Well, there's that bargaining again

What they don't tell you about the five stages of grief
Is that sometimes they overlap
And sometimes one stage reoccurs throughout
Like an underlying hum
That slowly drives you...

Anyway, Oliver...was five

And with each year
He'll, naturally, begin to shuck off
A little bit of the memory
Of his father

It'll be a burden
All of those memories
And he'll, understandably, want to lessen the load
I would imagine

Not things like his father's face
Or his laugh
Or his voice

Those things we have pictures for
Videos
Even voicemails

But the death itself
And the after-effects
And the before time
Things he could never be expected to remember
But things he might want to try and remember

And the after time
The things that didn't happen
Because a father wasn't there
To make them happen

The absence of past or future

Maybe that's the burden

. . . . .

Oliver was five
It was two years ago
And I remember everything

I remember dates and times
Images and sensory details
Sounds, smells, feelings

And so I hold the key

How much of all this
Do I pass on to my son?

We treasure history
But we forget
How heavy it can be

How much of it
Can we give away
Without feeling like we're placing the burden
Onto the tiny shoulders
Of our children
No matter how old they get

We believe we're stronger than them
That we can handle things they can't
That we can remember things
They shouldn't have to
But one day we'll be gone
And then...

And then if we don't pass them on
The people we remember
Are gone with us

So...

The story started the day I found my husband
On the kitchen floor
And it goes on from there

A story that millions of people have
I'm not particularly special
And neither is my situation

But it is my story
And my memory
And telling it to you...

It feels like a little piece of it
Just chipped away

The smallest piece

One less thing
I have to worry about