Memories

I enjoy writing. Often I know that most others will not appreciate it. Maybe I am, in the end, not a very good writer and the universe is just showing me that. Maybe, but I do know that I enjoy writing. I enjoy getting my perspectives out and bringing my reflections together in form... Anyhow the purpose of this post is memory. More specifically, it deals with our memories of those who we have met during the course of our lives, whose on lives may have touched ours in a powerful way. I tend to really look back on the shorter encounters as having greater meaning for me. This is especially true as I get older and the visions of the past become part of the great mass of the universe. The beautiful thing about aging is that your memories become as if they were simply a dream...The point is that there are certain moments that are so rich and powerful that they stick with you. I am going to talk about a small series of events that happened some point in the year of 1991. Seems so vast, considering that it is 2013 and I am alive to speak of them. But really what is our conception of time and the ways we "measure" it? It was a misty, cool morning, either early fall or early spring. I was at the bus stop waiting for the bus to go to school. I was 11 or so. It was school picture day so all the kids were dressed up in their nice clothing. There was one girl, her name was Emily Elizabeth. She was five or six years younger than me. I remember her that morning as a lively little girl with a sweet, happy smile in her red dress and beautiful matching bow ribbons in her hair. She was smiling and laughing. If my memory recalls, it was about easter. But that is all specifics, mere technicalities in a broader story. I myself was not a very popular kid. I never had many friends and put up with allot. I was feeling quite heavy, but I remember that through the mist I was touched by her innocent joy in that moment. Even before any of the events that would transpire not long after, i was affected by her. The moment is fresh, but the story carries on, as it is the nature of stories to carry on. The misty, sweet moment always gives way to the bigger picture of life. Not long after that morning she died. From the story that I heard hers was a freak death. One night she woke up and she couldn't breathe. By the time the ambulance got her to the hospital she was gone. I remember seeing the obituary and the picture that was used was her school picture from that morning. She was wearing that same dress, and ribbons and smiling that same sweet smile. It is Canada day and also Memorial Day in St John's Newfoundland. I have called this place home for almost six years now. Memorial Day is the anniversary that a huge number of young NL men lost their lives in the WWI battle of Beaumont-Hamel. Every year there is a service to remember those fallen young men and the loss of life and potential and innocence that this meant. On Memorial Day, the collective memory of the place goes back to that time, and the dead are given a kind of life again. It is profound to go back in ones individual and also the collective memories of culture to remember those things that stand out. Over the years the family of Emily have placed memorials to her in the newspapers. She , like the young men who were slaughtered at Beaumont-Hamel, is ageless. She will always be young and ageless, and I will remember her on that morning for as long as I live.