Memory lane: not always happy, but, when happy, a good place to wander

Memories can live anywhere. Some we keep happily in the place that best keeps them alive, while others lurk in the shadows, niggling away at us, whether we want them to or not.

One that niggles at me is the heartless way in which, many years ago, I reacted to a young man’s cry for help in a shopping mall entrance way. I was busy on my round of errands and brushed off his plea, not wanting to connect with someone who, in retrospect, I realize was in emotional distress of some kind and who, likely, just needed a friendly person to offer a helping hand. But I pulled my metaphorical armour tightly around me and kept walking. I re-live the feeling of my own ignorance every time I enter that same mall these days. If only I could go back to re-do that moment…

A happier memory lies in wait for me whenever I open my writing-desk drawer. That is where I keep a few of the mementos I have from my paternal grandmother: a silver case with her initials on it — a case that likely held carefully rolled cigarettes that she would smoke using a long holder clenched between her lipstick-red teeth; a little glass jar with a silver lid is intended for something precious, but I keep it empty; a little oval silver dish with a blue-glass insert is a salt holder — my grandparents’ dining table always held several of these at mealtimes, each with a very small silver spoon to serve the salt onto one’s plate. But the most precious item is the little propeller pencil and replacement lead ‘canister’. Granny’s name is on the pencil; she would have taken this with her when out and about, in case she came across something worthy of a quick sketch (so my mother told me). When I take the pencil into my own hand, I think about how, many decades ago, Granny would have held it in hers.

These things are valuable to me for the memories they evoke within me of my father’s mother and the times we would spend with Granny and Grandpa in their house full of treasures from their travels. When I die, who knows if anyone will see value of any kind in those items in my desk drawer.

The idea and the experience of memory is present in my mind these days. This time last year, I was coming to realize that my mother was beginning to seriously struggle with increasing physical limitations. While I don’t relish those memories, I am not haunted by any lack of connection between us or any inaction on my part in the months leading up to her death in late April. I am grateful these days that when I hold my mother’s round wooden thimble case or use the large-tined forks from her kitchen in my own, the memories of my mum that arise are infused with love and caring. Those memories I happily keep alive in the forefront of my head, my heart, and my days.

Mementos from my father’s mother: the little salt dish; the cigarette case; 
the little glass jar; the artist’s propeller pencil and refill canister. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.