“The clock is too early,” Craig said as he squinted at his digital clock. “Can you adjust the time?” “Actually Craigy, that’s the correct time,” I said.
That three months have passed since Craig’s death – and over six months since Mom’s last breath -- is a reminder that time owes no allegiance to the process of healing. It selfishly ticks on, putting distance between today and once crisp memories. How quickly we’ve transitioned from the process of living and creating memories to that of simply remembering. Though that exchange occurred months ago, I can still remember in perfect clarity the events that took place in the days leading up to his death. If only I could adjust the clock like Craig had asked, I’d turn it back by days. I’d slow the seconds and the half-beats between. I’d take us back to July 24, 2007, to the day before Mom was diagnosed with cancer, when we were still a healthy family of six. I’d zip back to lazy days of conversation and laughter, to times where we were more concerned about proving our point than relishing the time we had with each other. I wish I could. I wish I could slow life down, or snuff it out altogether with one stroke of a flat palm. I wish I could time travel to happier moments. I wish I could make the pain end and the sadness stop. But I can’t. With odd solemnity, time stands firm like a totem, pinning down the past and staking its claim to what will be in the days and weeks to come.
Time past is lost to us if not but for our memories. Yet, it’s the remembering that I find so difficult. Some days, I can remember details as if the event occurred yesterday. On those days, unexpected memories surge forward by the presence of equally unexpected stimuli, like the scent of Mom’s favorite perfume, Bellogia, hovering over an apartment stairwell, or the sound of a certain Maroon Five song, which Craig and I saw performed live by a Filipino cover band on Halloween night in Malaysia. Even now, as I sit at a coffee shop in Bangkok, listening to Hillary Stagg’s For My Love echo through the café’s stereo system, I’m transported back to the 11th floor of University of Colorado, to the moments before Mom’s last breath. I’m back sitting with Emily, Dad, Diane and Erin at 1800 Arapahoe, to long days huddled around Craig as he slowly gave his body permission to let go. These stimuli take me back, if just for a moment.
On other days, the memories seem as distant as their once vibrant smiles. My mind – trying to recall their exact laugh or how they looked in the morning – has suffered. And on those days, when the memories are just a bit out of reach, I wish more than anything to go back in time, if just to remember how life was before. If I could, their subtle aspects would become the focus of my preoccupation. I’d do my best to record Craig’s staccato delivery, or Mom’s grainy morning voice. I’d burn to memory his witty asides and her “Mary malapropos.” I’d show more patience with their stories and would store to heart their careful hugs and “I love you, sweethearts.” And I’d do it all for selfish reasons; to have something to hold on to during the rough days when the glaring reality of my lonesomeness sinks in.
But even then, the memory would fall short of the real thing. Memory cannot bring to life the touch of their hand after a hard day or the warmth of their embrace after disappointing news. Memories can form only a fiction of real life, a shifting foundation of what was, but the exact origins remain lost forever. We remember events as they relate to us. They become altered, remembered, and shaped to create a meaningful, yet nuanced narrative which, though it strives to be exact, is a caricature of real events. Memory takes us to a new destination slightly different from the last where exchanges and interactions take on a more selfish bent, and encounters are arranged and rearranged to suit our needs. Through memory, we’re able to recast ourselves as central characters, scrapping less essential “staff” to create more personal experiences with selected characters.
For me, I find myself recreating memories of Mom and Craig where I take on a more central role in the experience, though I’m not sure others would remember it quite the same way. Indeed, no two memories are the same. Scents and sounds change as do the words and tone of a conversation. Aspects previously thought unimportant come to the fore, while expressions, once forgotten, become instantly recalled. The frustration and joy comes from remembering exchanges in new and different ways.
Does the remembrance of the clock mark time lost or memories gained? Perhaps for some, memory has a way of escaping the tyranny of time, and all remains fresh and accurate to the life lived. For me, the memories change in step with the clock. But this is our mode of belonging to the world and to each other. The amendments and reflections, hesitations and digressions, backward looks and forward glances make up life. I would trade the memories for the real thing in a second, to have one more day with them here, but that fact has been fixed in time. Having them here is now an eternal impossibility. Memories -- however shifting and inexact -- will have to do. -- J
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