Like the corners of my mind…

So I was thinking…

What is it about childhood that crystallizes memories?  I can vividly remember the taste, smell and look of my favorite pizza growing up–Uncle Charley’s in Wexford, PA (yet I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night).  I can picture every nook and cranny of my childhood home on Grubbs road.  I remember small, random details like the metal feet to my Grandma Holloway’s tub or the weird baby doll in Grandma Wilson’s hall closet that smelled funny.

I vividly remember the bad things too.  Like coming down the stairs one morning to learn that my grandmother had passed away.  Like getting the news that my best friend’s father was killed in a work accident.  Like sitting down at a table and having my mom tell me that my aunt and uncle were getting divorced.

In so many ways, our lives are a collection of our memories–the good, the bad and the I-can’t-believe-that-actually-happened.

I wonder what memories my nieces and nephews will take from their childhoods.  I hope some of them involve Memaw’s crazy birthday hats, swimming in the pond and then trudging up 87 steps to the house, silly songs (I had a dog.  I named him frog.  He liked to swim in the cranberry bog).  I hope they’ll forget things like money problems, words spoken in anger, and every day they didn’t realize just how spectacular they are.

Each day is a gift.  Our memories are the receipts–the evidence that we have lived.