My memory is a blessing as well as a curse. I wish that I could turn it on and off at will but it's pretty random. Antibiotic dosages slip my mind but I will recall the name of someone's boss only mentioned in passing. I struggle with memorizing passages but in my mind's eye I can visualize embarrassing childhood events with surprising accuracy. Sometimes I will forget someone's name right away but I can remember the name of their childhood pet months later.
I remember the good and the bad experiences - sometimes it seems that it's more of the latter than the former, though. Despite my eidetic recollections, there's months (if not years) of my childhood that I can't recall, or time periods that blur together in an indistinguishable reel of disjointed frames. I'm not sure why that is; maybe my mind tries to protect me from remembering some of the worst times.
A few weeks ago, when going through mementos I found a picture of myself as a toddler going down a slide. I was laughing and happy and though you were just out of the frame, your hands were in the picture, waiting to catch me at the bottom. My grandmother told me you kept that photo with you when you had to go away for six weeks when I was two, and sometimes she'd wake up to sounds of your tears when you looked at it. I wish I remembered more of you, though I should be grateful I have any memories at all. Sometimes I wonder what you would say to me if you were here now. But you're not standing at the bottom of the slide to catch me anymore.
When I think about you, it's a flurry of bits of memories and phrases and feelings. I wonder how much I am like you now that I'm an adult. Where I'm more cautious, my brother inherited your confidence with the attitude that nothing is out of reach. I envy that surety in one's self to follow your dreams dauntlessly when I spend too much time looking and not enough leaping. I can't imagine your experience in the military in the early 80s as a minority female; it seems impossible for me even at this point in time. But you were no shrinking violet with your bravery and indomitable spirit. Your posture reflected your approach to life - standing straight and facing forward. I try to remember that when my inclination to recede; to make myself smaller; to avoid looking up and out rears its head. You would get knocked down but get up and keep going without being deterred at all.
I do share the same softness you had. Depending on the day, I'm not sure if it's a strength or a weakness to put yourself out there and to be vulnerable and sensitive. It lends the opportunity to connect with people and commands a special ability to love, but when you wear your heart on your sleeve it's much easier for it to be broken. Despite this, I find myself following in your pattern of not becoming embittered and remaining open and compassionate...maybe to a fault. I heard someone describe you as the type of person who'd give you the shirt off their back and I agree with that. Although maybe it's foolish to help and love people if it's to your own detriment, and despite intensity of emotion, you can't change the entire world. Things won't always be right; my burning passions cannot change the tides. But, even though it leads to scars, I never want to lose that softness.
You were blessed with naturally perfect teeth and you had a certain slow, sunshine smile that I can picture perfectly. After years of orthodontic manipulation, my teeth are nothing like the crooked grin of my childhood and sometimes I catch glimpses of your smile reflecting back at me. It's a bit ironic that years after you'd gone, my teeth look more like yours, but would be unrecognizable from what you had known.
I remember your eyes - though mine are lighter, we shared the same tendency to broadcast emotions through them. I can recall how they would flash in anger; how they would brim with tears when you were stirred by something; how they would soften when I shared my burdens with you. Usually rimmed with dark kohl, I can even remember how red and irritated they were with your allergies. After my years of pleading to get a cat, your hypersensitivity to felines precluded that, and you tried to console me with a pet bunny. Your immune system didn't discriminate against its dander, and I won't forget how much you loved me that you endured the allergic reactions to try to make me happy.
You had a strong sense of duty. As the eldest child, you loved and supported your parents and even became an engineer to please them. I guess I am more selfish than you were, but then again, I remember you encouraging us to do and be whatever we wanted as long as we did it well. You didn't want to impose any expectations on us. You didn't want to stifle our inclinations but encouraged us to aspire to excellence.
You were a protector. I remember you shielding me from his temper when it raged like a storm through our home. When I cowered, you covered me. And in his absence, you fulfilled the role of both parents as well as you could. I've always struggled with rejection; I remember when I sobbed after my friends in middle school ejected me their group, you consoled me. It hurt you to see me hurting, even if you did have the insight to realize that the sky indeed was not falling by the hands of adolescent girls.
You were a paradox of confidence. I saw the boldness that you approached life with and grabbed the bull by its horns. You weren't afraid of confrontation and sometimes you were led by righteous indignation when perhaps you could have let things slide. I have noticed that there is a family trait of not necessarily knowing when to stop or let things go. I think that tenacity helped you endure the obstacles you were faced as a female, first generation immigrant in a series of difficult situations. But I also saw how you struggled. You didn't have an easy life. I remember many nights finding you sitting in silence by the fireplace with your attention fixed on the flames. You had an expression on your face that I couldn't quite put into words. I'm older now, and though I still can't really verbalize it, sometimes I see the same expression staring back at me. I remember how you'd do puzzles on the living room table - you told me it helped you think. It was about the process, not the outcome, and I remember there was a palpable air of concentration surrounding you when you scrutinized the scattered pieces.
I can see why you encouraged me to be myself and to not worry about fitting in. You faced discrimination and racism from birth, and you didn't want me to struggle the same way you did. I remember finding your drawer of diet pills and supplements, and the glasses of cayenne pepper lemonade. I remember the comments I overheard you make about yourself when I find myself echoing similar sentiments. I don't remember you telling me I was beautiful or ugly, or that I was fat, or that I needed to change or look a certain way. When it came to me, you didn't dwell on the physical very much to the point where I don't even remember you commenting on my appearance at all. But I think I absorbed more of the self-critical gaze you fixed on yourself in your bathroom mirror than you realized.
Like you, I tend to be restless. I see now that on the random Sunday mornings where you'd decide we were going to Watertown or Montreal or wherever "just because", you needed a quick change of scenery. I like driving, too - there's a tranquility in being on the road with your thoughts though there is a tinge of avoidance, too. I remember how the scenery from home to Watertown would perceptibly change when we got into the US. I went back to that mall a few years ago; it's changed a lot. You'd talk to us about anything and everything on those drives, from philosophical questions to telling us stories from your younger life. I wish I remembered more of those. I remember the newly-planted trees that lined the streets near our house. They must be tall now. I remember the time we stopped the car because there was a goose and her goslings crossing the street.
If you liked a song, you'd listen to it over and over without getting tired of it. You sang along to the radio and if you didn't know the words, you would make them up without being self conscious at all. You could watch a movie over and over and laugh like it was the first time you'd ever seen it. The movies that would leave you crying from laughter don't resonate with me the same way. You would wear that blue sparkly dress during the day running errands because you loved it. You left a trail of turquoise glitter in your wake.
I always left my school projects to the last minute, and though you would chide me for procrastination, I'm sure I learned it from you. I remember us looking for the perfect household object to make a nucleus for my science class model of an animal cell. You were an orator at heart; I think you wrote more of my school speeches than I did. I wonder if the teachers could tell that the level of articulation and thought complexity was much more than my twelve year old mind could fathom.
Maybe I often picture you in your bedroom because you spent so much time there toward the end of your life. It was a post-divorce indulgence; a king sized cast iron behemoth. Your sheets and bedding were all pure white and I still have the coverlet; it's too big for my bed and it has a hole in it but I can't let it go. The bed frame is long gone but I still have the bedside tables. The pewter curlicues still remind me of you. You were always keen on having your bed made. I laugh to myself when I remember how as a child, in an act of angry defiance after being scolded, I would retaliate by creeping into your bedroom and messing up the pillows and sheets. Subsequently plagued with guilt and fearful of the discovery of my treachery, I would usually creep back in shortly after and fix them.
You had a tendency for long phone conversations. You'd bridge the five-hour driving distance from your parents with staying on the phone for what seemed like eternity. You would tether yourself to your bed with the black phone, idly winding the cord through your fingers and stare out of the window while you spoke. When I picture the view of the ravine behind our house, I remember it in winter with the tree boughs weighed down by snow and glinting with icicles. When you were on the phone, I'd often come and lay down beside you and you would rub my back in straight lines while you talked. I didn't pay much attention to the half of the conversation that I could hear; I would zone out and enjoy your ministrations. If you stopped, I would wiggle until you laughingly resumed. I still find having my back rubbed immensely soothing, though I rarely experience that anymore. I don't hug often.
I wish I had your cheekbones as they were the type that you try to emulate with shadow and contour. I'm a few inches taller than you were; I can't remember if I was this tall when you died. I can't remember standing next to you. My feet are bigger than yours were; I could wear your shoes in seventh grade. My hair is a different texture than yours - it's finer and more delicate and I wonder if that's sort of symbolic of our personality compositions. I remember that your post-chemo wig was such a good match that even your hairdresser couldn't tell it was a wig by sight alone. I don't know if I have your ankles or collarbones or ears because as hard as I try, I simply can't remember. It's like you exist in my memory in fragments. I don't think I look much like you but sometimes people who knew you tell me I look like my mother. I awkwardly half smile because I usually barely know them and I don't know what to say. I recall how people would ask you if we were your children or if you were our nanny.
You would have given us everything if you could. In ninth grade, we were at the mall and I was whining to get a pair of running shoes. You accurately pointed out I didn't need them, but when we were leaving, you stopped abruptly and said, "maybe I should just get you those shoes." Fortunately I had a modicum of sense and told you I didn't really need them. You were the child who grew up poor and struggling, and so you put us in art lessons and karate and swimming and all of the things that were outside of your reach when you were our age. Despite what some people said, I don't think we were spoiled because our time with you was so brief; bereft of parents, I think that evened out after the fact.
I remember the lullaby you used to sing to me when you put me to sleep. I don't know what the words translate to in English, but when you sang quietly to me, it meant that I was safe and I was loved. I think if I ever have a child, I would sing them the same lullaby iA. I wonder if I would be like you were - somehow able to detect if either of us snuck into your bed and sending us back to our own in the middle of the night because you couldn't sleep with our presence there. I slept in your bed when you were in the hospital for the last time. I vividly remember the 5 a.m. phone call asking us to come in. A few weeks after you died, I woke up and dialed your cell number before I realized what had transpired.
You had a creative spirit and were able to see things for much more than they were. A plain Ikea dresser was transformed when you decoupaged it and found new hardware. I still have it and people comment on how beautiful it is; the drawers stick a bit and one of them is crooked but I don't want to part with it. The collages you painstakingly put together still hang on the walls of your parents' and siblings' home. Acrylic paint transformed a mundane bottle harvested from a recycling bin into an ornate dish soap dispenser. When older, I laughed when I realized that it was a Crown Royal bottle; it certainly wasn't its usual use. You surrounded yourself with what you found beautiful. You redid our kitchen with bright yellow paint and a floral border. You weren't dissuaded by the people who said it was garish because you loved it. It may have been tacky, but you hand painted every tile of the backsplash in bright colours because that sparked joy for you. You decided to cover the entire dining table with a tile mosaic in a pattern that you made up. I watched you break up tiles with a hammer and a sock. Of course I didn't listen to you when you told me not to touch them, and I distinctly remember watching the blood pool on the tip of my finger where I pricked it. It progressed week by week; I quietly watched you wipe away the last smear of grout and remember the satisfaction on your face. The table broke in the move and was too heavy for me to take with me when I left but I can still see it in my mind.
You always told me to be strong, work hard, be tough. I wonder if at some subliminal level you knew that you wouldn't be around for us to grow up. I lost you on the cusp of adulthood and it feels like your absence taught me more than your presence. That dynamic is sort of mirrored by my father, though his absence is voluntary whereas yours is not. I at least have the security of knowing you loved me.
I guess I get my emotional side from you. My anger will flare quickly but subside just as fast. I get outraged at injustices great and small like you did. With age, I have learned that there are a lot of things that are "not right" in the world. I tear up easily; I remember that every single time we watched the Lion King, you'd cry even though you knew what was coming. You were very patient with my repeated pleas to let me have a lion as a pet - my tears weren't warranted at that time. The benefit of feeling things in extremes is the ability to love hard and feel great joys, but you also can be hurt intensely as well. At the core of things, I would rather be hurt myself than hurt someone else. I'm still working on the emotional balance. You warned me about bitterness; "acid burns the vessel it's in".
I wonder if I read too much into similarities between us. I'm also a better baker than a cook. If I like something, I'll buy it in multiple colors. I have an affinity for Diet Pepsi. I'm good at making puns. There are some things I have no self discipline with. I like walking at night more than the day. I'm a good emotional weathervane. I try to take care of my grandparents like you did. I listen to music too loud in my car. These are all minuscule details but it makes me feel more like of a part of you. I remember staring at the ceiling of the operating room before I was put under for surgery. One of your favourite songs started playing on the radio and I smiled and teared up simultaneously. It was a random coincidence but I felt you with me then.
I laugh when I remember you waiting a few days to take me to the clinic when my arm was broken. "We didn't want to be the parents that always take their kids to the doctor's office." I remember you staying at my hospital bedside when I was in the car accident when I was five years old. I was upset because I couldn't find the dinosaur sticker the nurse bribed me with in exchange for a needle prick. You took me to the games room and I painted a picture lying on the hospital stretcher while you played foosball with my brother. You said my picture was beautiful. I remember how you were shaking after I got hit by a car when I ran across the street; at age eight, I should have known better.
One elementary school Valentine's Day, in addition to the standard issue paper valentines dutifully given out to the class, you bought some special chocolates and a few flowers. You told me these were for the girls that were overlooked and who were less popular; we made phony "secret admirer" notes and you dropped me off early at school to sneak them in. I remember the smiles of the girls who were ordinarily ignored on that "holiday". Maybe white lies weren't such a bad thing.
I remember the colour of your lipstick and the pattern of the lining of your purse. I remember your leather coat which helped me recognize you in a crowd, though one time it betrayed me when I hugged a stranger wearing a similar one in the grocery store. I remember how you got me my first job at a downtown ice cream parlour with a throwaway comment of, "are you hiring? She needs a job." I remember your big earrings that now sit in my jewelry box on my dresser. I'm not as confident in my ability to pull them off as you were. I recognize your perfume when I pass the teardrop-shaped bottle in department stores. I remember being pulled off the class recital stage for crying because I didn't see you in the audience; you got a speeding ticket trying to make it there on time. I remember coming home from camp when my brother was still away, and it was just me and you for that week. I remember the look of your car's headlights, cat-like in the dark as I sat on a curb waiting for you a million different times.
I remember the good and the bad experiences - sometimes it seems that it's more of the latter than the former, though. Despite my eidetic recollections, there's months (if not years) of my childhood that I can't recall, or time periods that blur together in an indistinguishable reel of disjointed frames. I'm not sure why that is; maybe my mind tries to protect me from remembering some of the worst times.
A few weeks ago, when going through mementos I found a picture of myself as a toddler going down a slide. I was laughing and happy and though you were just out of the frame, your hands were in the picture, waiting to catch me at the bottom. My grandmother told me you kept that photo with you when you had to go away for six weeks when I was two, and sometimes she'd wake up to sounds of your tears when you looked at it. I wish I remembered more of you, though I should be grateful I have any memories at all. Sometimes I wonder what you would say to me if you were here now. But you're not standing at the bottom of the slide to catch me anymore.
When I think about you, it's a flurry of bits of memories and phrases and feelings. I wonder how much I am like you now that I'm an adult. Where I'm more cautious, my brother inherited your confidence with the attitude that nothing is out of reach. I envy that surety in one's self to follow your dreams dauntlessly when I spend too much time looking and not enough leaping. I can't imagine your experience in the military in the early 80s as a minority female; it seems impossible for me even at this point in time. But you were no shrinking violet with your bravery and indomitable spirit. Your posture reflected your approach to life - standing straight and facing forward. I try to remember that when my inclination to recede; to make myself smaller; to avoid looking up and out rears its head. You would get knocked down but get up and keep going without being deterred at all.
I do share the same softness you had. Depending on the day, I'm not sure if it's a strength or a weakness to put yourself out there and to be vulnerable and sensitive. It lends the opportunity to connect with people and commands a special ability to love, but when you wear your heart on your sleeve it's much easier for it to be broken. Despite this, I find myself following in your pattern of not becoming embittered and remaining open and compassionate...maybe to a fault. I heard someone describe you as the type of person who'd give you the shirt off their back and I agree with that. Although maybe it's foolish to help and love people if it's to your own detriment, and despite intensity of emotion, you can't change the entire world. Things won't always be right; my burning passions cannot change the tides. But, even though it leads to scars, I never want to lose that softness.
You were blessed with naturally perfect teeth and you had a certain slow, sunshine smile that I can picture perfectly. After years of orthodontic manipulation, my teeth are nothing like the crooked grin of my childhood and sometimes I catch glimpses of your smile reflecting back at me. It's a bit ironic that years after you'd gone, my teeth look more like yours, but would be unrecognizable from what you had known.
I remember your eyes - though mine are lighter, we shared the same tendency to broadcast emotions through them. I can recall how they would flash in anger; how they would brim with tears when you were stirred by something; how they would soften when I shared my burdens with you. Usually rimmed with dark kohl, I can even remember how red and irritated they were with your allergies. After my years of pleading to get a cat, your hypersensitivity to felines precluded that, and you tried to console me with a pet bunny. Your immune system didn't discriminate against its dander, and I won't forget how much you loved me that you endured the allergic reactions to try to make me happy.
You had a strong sense of duty. As the eldest child, you loved and supported your parents and even became an engineer to please them. I guess I am more selfish than you were, but then again, I remember you encouraging us to do and be whatever we wanted as long as we did it well. You didn't want to impose any expectations on us. You didn't want to stifle our inclinations but encouraged us to aspire to excellence.
You were a protector. I remember you shielding me from his temper when it raged like a storm through our home. When I cowered, you covered me. And in his absence, you fulfilled the role of both parents as well as you could. I've always struggled with rejection; I remember when I sobbed after my friends in middle school ejected me their group, you consoled me. It hurt you to see me hurting, even if you did have the insight to realize that the sky indeed was not falling by the hands of adolescent girls.
You were a paradox of confidence. I saw the boldness that you approached life with and grabbed the bull by its horns. You weren't afraid of confrontation and sometimes you were led by righteous indignation when perhaps you could have let things slide. I have noticed that there is a family trait of not necessarily knowing when to stop or let things go. I think that tenacity helped you endure the obstacles you were faced as a female, first generation immigrant in a series of difficult situations. But I also saw how you struggled. You didn't have an easy life. I remember many nights finding you sitting in silence by the fireplace with your attention fixed on the flames. You had an expression on your face that I couldn't quite put into words. I'm older now, and though I still can't really verbalize it, sometimes I see the same expression staring back at me. I remember how you'd do puzzles on the living room table - you told me it helped you think. It was about the process, not the outcome, and I remember there was a palpable air of concentration surrounding you when you scrutinized the scattered pieces.
I can see why you encouraged me to be myself and to not worry about fitting in. You faced discrimination and racism from birth, and you didn't want me to struggle the same way you did. I remember finding your drawer of diet pills and supplements, and the glasses of cayenne pepper lemonade. I remember the comments I overheard you make about yourself when I find myself echoing similar sentiments. I don't remember you telling me I was beautiful or ugly, or that I was fat, or that I needed to change or look a certain way. When it came to me, you didn't dwell on the physical very much to the point where I don't even remember you commenting on my appearance at all. But I think I absorbed more of the self-critical gaze you fixed on yourself in your bathroom mirror than you realized.
Like you, I tend to be restless. I see now that on the random Sunday mornings where you'd decide we were going to Watertown or Montreal or wherever "just because", you needed a quick change of scenery. I like driving, too - there's a tranquility in being on the road with your thoughts though there is a tinge of avoidance, too. I remember how the scenery from home to Watertown would perceptibly change when we got into the US. I went back to that mall a few years ago; it's changed a lot. You'd talk to us about anything and everything on those drives, from philosophical questions to telling us stories from your younger life. I wish I remembered more of those. I remember the newly-planted trees that lined the streets near our house. They must be tall now. I remember the time we stopped the car because there was a goose and her goslings crossing the street.
If you liked a song, you'd listen to it over and over without getting tired of it. You sang along to the radio and if you didn't know the words, you would make them up without being self conscious at all. You could watch a movie over and over and laugh like it was the first time you'd ever seen it. The movies that would leave you crying from laughter don't resonate with me the same way. You would wear that blue sparkly dress during the day running errands because you loved it. You left a trail of turquoise glitter in your wake.
I always left my school projects to the last minute, and though you would chide me for procrastination, I'm sure I learned it from you. I remember us looking for the perfect household object to make a nucleus for my science class model of an animal cell. You were an orator at heart; I think you wrote more of my school speeches than I did. I wonder if the teachers could tell that the level of articulation and thought complexity was much more than my twelve year old mind could fathom.
Maybe I often picture you in your bedroom because you spent so much time there toward the end of your life. It was a post-divorce indulgence; a king sized cast iron behemoth. Your sheets and bedding were all pure white and I still have the coverlet; it's too big for my bed and it has a hole in it but I can't let it go. The bed frame is long gone but I still have the bedside tables. The pewter curlicues still remind me of you. You were always keen on having your bed made. I laugh to myself when I remember how as a child, in an act of angry defiance after being scolded, I would retaliate by creeping into your bedroom and messing up the pillows and sheets. Subsequently plagued with guilt and fearful of the discovery of my treachery, I would usually creep back in shortly after and fix them.
You had a tendency for long phone conversations. You'd bridge the five-hour driving distance from your parents with staying on the phone for what seemed like eternity. You would tether yourself to your bed with the black phone, idly winding the cord through your fingers and stare out of the window while you spoke. When I picture the view of the ravine behind our house, I remember it in winter with the tree boughs weighed down by snow and glinting with icicles. When you were on the phone, I'd often come and lay down beside you and you would rub my back in straight lines while you talked. I didn't pay much attention to the half of the conversation that I could hear; I would zone out and enjoy your ministrations. If you stopped, I would wiggle until you laughingly resumed. I still find having my back rubbed immensely soothing, though I rarely experience that anymore. I don't hug often.
I wish I had your cheekbones as they were the type that you try to emulate with shadow and contour. I'm a few inches taller than you were; I can't remember if I was this tall when you died. I can't remember standing next to you. My feet are bigger than yours were; I could wear your shoes in seventh grade. My hair is a different texture than yours - it's finer and more delicate and I wonder if that's sort of symbolic of our personality compositions. I remember that your post-chemo wig was such a good match that even your hairdresser couldn't tell it was a wig by sight alone. I don't know if I have your ankles or collarbones or ears because as hard as I try, I simply can't remember. It's like you exist in my memory in fragments. I don't think I look much like you but sometimes people who knew you tell me I look like my mother. I awkwardly half smile because I usually barely know them and I don't know what to say. I recall how people would ask you if we were your children or if you were our nanny.
You would have given us everything if you could. In ninth grade, we were at the mall and I was whining to get a pair of running shoes. You accurately pointed out I didn't need them, but when we were leaving, you stopped abruptly and said, "maybe I should just get you those shoes." Fortunately I had a modicum of sense and told you I didn't really need them. You were the child who grew up poor and struggling, and so you put us in art lessons and karate and swimming and all of the things that were outside of your reach when you were our age. Despite what some people said, I don't think we were spoiled because our time with you was so brief; bereft of parents, I think that evened out after the fact.
I remember the lullaby you used to sing to me when you put me to sleep. I don't know what the words translate to in English, but when you sang quietly to me, it meant that I was safe and I was loved. I think if I ever have a child, I would sing them the same lullaby iA. I wonder if I would be like you were - somehow able to detect if either of us snuck into your bed and sending us back to our own in the middle of the night because you couldn't sleep with our presence there. I slept in your bed when you were in the hospital for the last time. I vividly remember the 5 a.m. phone call asking us to come in. A few weeks after you died, I woke up and dialed your cell number before I realized what had transpired.
You had a creative spirit and were able to see things for much more than they were. A plain Ikea dresser was transformed when you decoupaged it and found new hardware. I still have it and people comment on how beautiful it is; the drawers stick a bit and one of them is crooked but I don't want to part with it. The collages you painstakingly put together still hang on the walls of your parents' and siblings' home. Acrylic paint transformed a mundane bottle harvested from a recycling bin into an ornate dish soap dispenser. When older, I laughed when I realized that it was a Crown Royal bottle; it certainly wasn't its usual use. You surrounded yourself with what you found beautiful. You redid our kitchen with bright yellow paint and a floral border. You weren't dissuaded by the people who said it was garish because you loved it. It may have been tacky, but you hand painted every tile of the backsplash in bright colours because that sparked joy for you. You decided to cover the entire dining table with a tile mosaic in a pattern that you made up. I watched you break up tiles with a hammer and a sock. Of course I didn't listen to you when you told me not to touch them, and I distinctly remember watching the blood pool on the tip of my finger where I pricked it. It progressed week by week; I quietly watched you wipe away the last smear of grout and remember the satisfaction on your face. The table broke in the move and was too heavy for me to take with me when I left but I can still see it in my mind.
You always told me to be strong, work hard, be tough. I wonder if at some subliminal level you knew that you wouldn't be around for us to grow up. I lost you on the cusp of adulthood and it feels like your absence taught me more than your presence. That dynamic is sort of mirrored by my father, though his absence is voluntary whereas yours is not. I at least have the security of knowing you loved me.
I guess I get my emotional side from you. My anger will flare quickly but subside just as fast. I get outraged at injustices great and small like you did. With age, I have learned that there are a lot of things that are "not right" in the world. I tear up easily; I remember that every single time we watched the Lion King, you'd cry even though you knew what was coming. You were very patient with my repeated pleas to let me have a lion as a pet - my tears weren't warranted at that time. The benefit of feeling things in extremes is the ability to love hard and feel great joys, but you also can be hurt intensely as well. At the core of things, I would rather be hurt myself than hurt someone else. I'm still working on the emotional balance. You warned me about bitterness; "acid burns the vessel it's in".
I wonder if I read too much into similarities between us. I'm also a better baker than a cook. If I like something, I'll buy it in multiple colors. I have an affinity for Diet Pepsi. I'm good at making puns. There are some things I have no self discipline with. I like walking at night more than the day. I'm a good emotional weathervane. I try to take care of my grandparents like you did. I listen to music too loud in my car. These are all minuscule details but it makes me feel more like of a part of you. I remember staring at the ceiling of the operating room before I was put under for surgery. One of your favourite songs started playing on the radio and I smiled and teared up simultaneously. It was a random coincidence but I felt you with me then.
I laugh when I remember you waiting a few days to take me to the clinic when my arm was broken. "We didn't want to be the parents that always take their kids to the doctor's office." I remember you staying at my hospital bedside when I was in the car accident when I was five years old. I was upset because I couldn't find the dinosaur sticker the nurse bribed me with in exchange for a needle prick. You took me to the games room and I painted a picture lying on the hospital stretcher while you played foosball with my brother. You said my picture was beautiful. I remember how you were shaking after I got hit by a car when I ran across the street; at age eight, I should have known better.
One elementary school Valentine's Day, in addition to the standard issue paper valentines dutifully given out to the class, you bought some special chocolates and a few flowers. You told me these were for the girls that were overlooked and who were less popular; we made phony "secret admirer" notes and you dropped me off early at school to sneak them in. I remember the smiles of the girls who were ordinarily ignored on that "holiday". Maybe white lies weren't such a bad thing.
I remember the colour of your lipstick and the pattern of the lining of your purse. I remember your leather coat which helped me recognize you in a crowd, though one time it betrayed me when I hugged a stranger wearing a similar one in the grocery store. I remember how you got me my first job at a downtown ice cream parlour with a throwaway comment of, "are you hiring? She needs a job." I remember your big earrings that now sit in my jewelry box on my dresser. I'm not as confident in my ability to pull them off as you were. I recognize your perfume when I pass the teardrop-shaped bottle in department stores. I remember being pulled off the class recital stage for crying because I didn't see you in the audience; you got a speeding ticket trying to make it there on time. I remember coming home from camp when my brother was still away, and it was just me and you for that week. I remember the look of your car's headlights, cat-like in the dark as I sat on a curb waiting for you a million different times.
There's so much about you that I have forgotten. But there is some I do remember.
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