On Wanting My Memories Back:

I’ve complained about this before. Not that it made one bit of difference of course. But my memory has been shot full of holes since the chemo. I want my memories back.

Part of the joy of holidays is remembering the good times of the past. This for me is a double edged sword. Past memories are all mixed up with my son’s life. And though it has been ten years since his death, I still hurt at times at some of the memories I do have.

What I want is more of the good memories back. Remembering pinching little fingers in a door or being disappointed about a broken vase is not what I want to remember of his life. I want happy laughter and pleasant surprise times. Presents and wrappings, songs and fun, games and winnings, reading books and walks in the park.

I do remember some of these things, but the family talks about so many others I have no memory of. Why did the chemo erase more of the good times and less of the bad.

I want to remember the joy of his receiving his first bicycle not just the skinned knee from his first crash on it.

I’ve been shrinking back from participating in holiday festivities more and more each year since my son’s death. The fact that Mountain Man grew up in a family that minimized holidays leaving him a non participant even at the best of years doesn’t help matters much.

Try as I might, I can’t retrieve what is gone for good. There are no children in the house to help create new memories for my cash of good time memories for next year. And lets face it, most of holiday fun is designed for children’s pleasure and ours from the observing of it.

I’ve tried to make fun grownup holiday fun but that only leads to over eating in my singular celebrations and the months of extra exercise and dieting to fix the damage.

This year all I’ve done was color a picture a day in a holiday coloring book. Crayons still carry the magic of childhood that only the smell of a box of those brightly colored sticks of wax can bring. But what I really want this holiday season is a box of my old memories.