Besides chalk-drawing and a trip to the park, there was plenty of indoor time, building, drawing, playing with model cars, the train, reading, eating, and a good deal of jumping.
Luca, who is four, has become adept at searching all through my cluttered apartment, locating new (old) toys, lost memories, reminders of times when things were different here.
Some of what he unearths is disconcerting, reminding me how quite recently my life was so much different than it is now.
I quickly dispose of some things, place others out of reach, and encourage him to play with the rest.
There are so many notes, bags, pieces, fragments from many lives lived here: parts of two marriages, three girlfriends, six kids and more recently of all five grandchildren.
Through it all, the only constant is me, the old, old man, feeling ever older day by day.
Memories are fine if you don't have to be shocked by their clarity. Memories are fine except when you know the other custodian of a mutual memory no longer knows, cares, or even, most shockingly, chooses not to remember at all.
Such is the uneven cruelty of how we all move on, each at our own speed.
But I, I remember everything.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment