We pass hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people every day. We’ll never know their names, their backgrounds, where they came from, or their outcome.
We might see an attractive person walking down the street, but the memory of their presence fades with every step. We interact and talk with a smaller number of people, but even so, how many will we recall a year, or ten years down the road? How long do we remember the nice cashier once they’ve moved on to a new job, or we’ve moved on to a new grocery store?
Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s my faulty memory. Unable to capture and store meaningful interactions. I forget as much as I remember. Perhaps my brain needs a proper defragging. Clean up unnecessary information and improve mental processing. Because I’m sure there are important people I’ve met along the way, I no longer remember.
At my dad’s funeral, more than a few people came up and commented on how much I’d grown. How they knew me as a child, changed my diapers. I’d never seen those people in my entire life. Apparently, they’d seen me naked. Though I guess you tend to remember the people you see in the buff. I still have nightmares of turning a corner in Wrigley Field to use the bathroom, only to see an old guy standing way too far away from the urinal trough, hands on hips, descency and weak stream circling the drain.
Why my mind captured that moment, I don’t know. Frankly, I’d like to have a sit-down chat with my brain from time to time and enquire what rules and theories it practices in deciding what to remember and what to forget.
Who to remember and who to forget.
I loved rocks as a kid. Big rocks, small rocks, sharp rocks, smooth rocks. Few things were as magical as flipping over a rock in the backyard. The mysteries each rock hid away. Slugs, rolly pollies, worms, centipedes (though those creeped me out).
Sometimes I’d put the bugs in my pockets. My younger sister once found a massive earthworm almost a foot long. She named “him” Clifford. I took him to school so I could put him in the wildlife aquarium. He died in my pocket en route.
Pretty stones I’d take in the house. After all the dirt and dead insect parts were hosed off, of course. Those backyard rocks became the first in a collection. A store in the mall, Natural Wonders, had a rock section in the back. I could pick through piles of polished stones, more beautiful than any other rocks I’d ever seen. “Hey Mom,” I once asked in the crowded store, “why isn’t the stone on your ring as big as this tiger eye?”
Perhaps asking such a question was why neither parent ever bought me stones from the store, though someone did gift me a Petoskey stone. I liked that stone. Smooth to the touch and relatively bland while dry, when wet, all the small exoskeleton coral fossils that comprised the stone popped to life. A stone fingerprint, I carried it around in my pocket.
The same pocket as Clifford, though thankfully, the fossils were already dead.
“I just think it’s neat,” I would say.
On Sunday mornings, I’d stuff whatever trinkets I could into those pockets, though ocular patdowns from my mom usually resulted in reaching church empty-handed. Occasionally, though, I managed to sneak one or two by her.
Every fifth Sunday of the month was “Family Sunday.” Instead of retreating to the basement for a kids’ service containing arts, crafts, and cartoons, Family Sunday meant everyone remained in the nave, seated on hard pews. It also meant listening to my dad, the paster, go on and on about salvation and eternal bliss, though I found it strange Heaven had pearly gates, but I couldn’t have rocks in my pocket.
Thankfully, my mom often forgot to check my socks for stones. As the congregation bowed to pray, I folded my hands and inspected the imperfections and sparkling flecks in my chosen rocky companion for the day. When I brought the Petoskey stone, I’d lick a finger then rub it across the pebble’s face, watching the moisture outline of creatures long since dead.
Following the conclusion of one particular service, a couple approached, enquiring to see the stone I had in my possession. I didn’t know much about the two. The man was a former WWII colonel in the army, a fact I knew because other congregation members referred to him by rank, not name. He also slid on a hat, confirming the rank whenever leaving church.
The woman, I didn’t know anything about. They were my grandparents’ age and size, though the man significantly outranked my grandfather, a private first class. The couple always sat in the same pew, along the far wall. For some reason, when thinking of them, it’s from an angle as if I were giving a sermon, though naturally I never did. Sunlight caught the particular window they sat next to, highlighting them from the rest of the seated worshipers.
I can picture the colonel with his navy blazer and Freemasons pin. His shaved face and nicely parted gray hair — when he wasn’t wearing his hat, of course. But his wife, she’s a blur in my memory. A scribble of red. I think she wore colorful matching skirts and blazers, though I’m not sure. For whatever reason, when standing from the pulpit, looking out onto them, I see the colonel and a scribble of color.
That one Sunday, they looked over my stone and then handed it back. They might have asked me questions, though I likely gave one-word answers. Ever the shy kid, I struggled to hold conversations with other children, let alone adults.
The next Sunday, the couple waved me over after church. I’m not sure which one did the waving. The colonel was firm but even-toned. Composed. His wife was quiet, but I think she would wave at me, the way other grandmothers wave at young children.
Next to them, on the pew, sat a box. “Open it,” one of them said.
Doing so revealed maybe a dozen or so fossils frozen in stone. I picked up an ammonia, a circular fossil that spiraled out from itself. Larger than my hand, the ridges of the ancient creature were alien and exhilarating.
“What do you say?” my mom said from behind my shoulder. I could only guess the couple asked her blessing to offer the gift.
“Thank you,” I said, not looking up from the bounty.
It turned out that the couple went on excavations and digs in their retirement and collected interesting tidbits of history along the way. The stones and fossils didn’t have the sparkling grandeur of geodes and crystals, but instead contained something else. A story. A connection to something long before my time.
From time to time, at the conclusion of random services, the couple would wave me over, a new fossil in a small box waiting for me to unwrap. I’d eagerly remove the find, turning it over and inspecting it from their pristine seats with perfect light. My collection grew through their patronage.
For reasons unbeknownst to me, my mom dropped me off at the couple’s house one day. I don’t know why. Still don’t. Most likely, my parents needed a sitter, and the usual suspects were busy, though I don’t recall either sister with me.
The woman welcomed me inside. The colonel might have been there, but I don’t remember him. Perhaps he had work or a Freemason meeting. If he were like my private first-class grandfather, he’d be sitting in the sunroom, wearing a tank top, sipping a beer while listening to polka or Ernie Harwell call a Tigers game.
Wherever he was, he doesn’t exist in this memory, though very little does.
Like looking at a screen behind a series of fish tanks, the memory is blurred, wavy, distorted, I can see the inside of their home, brown carpeting, few lights on. I think the woman made cookies and lemonade, though I’m not for sure. She showed me more fossils and stones collected over the years. I recall sitting on the carpet, looking out a glass sliding door to the backyard, the grass so green compared to the brown carpeting. She sat on a wicker chair to my left, though maybe it was wood. Even still, she exists as a red scribble in the memory.
I know we talked, though I don’t know what about.
But I know she was nice. And kind. I know she smiled when I ate a cookie and talked while I looked out the window. I don’t think she said much to the colonel. He was serious. I think she hid away a creative, warm side.
I can’t remember her face, but I remember how nice she was. That I was happy to have spent that little amount of time with her.
She died years before the colonel. I was older then. The stone and fossil collection long since boxed and put away. Still, it felt strange to look and see him, sitting alone on the far side of the pew, perfect lighting cutting over his shoulder. He made sure to save optimal sunshine for his departed wife. I could see the red scribble of dress next to him and, if I tried, a smile.
We can’t always decide who we remember. The brain dictates what it stores and what it deletes. I’d say it would be nice if we could choose, but then again, I don’t know if I would have decided at that time in my life to remember the wife. Maybe the mind knows what it’s doing. And while I can only see a colorful scribble, I like to think that’s because I was focused on recording just how thoughtful, warm, and caring she was.
I guess, in the end, if I had to choose, I’d much rather people remember me for what I was like, that I was warm and cared about them, not how I looked.
This was a ‘put down phone and reflect’ kind of read - thank you.
Beautiful, important narrative on memory; made my night at 2:45 am. Thanks.