When Memories Come

Today, as the communion cups were finishing their rounds, I sat looking at my hands holding the tiny plastic cup filled with grape juice. And in that moment, I remembered my father’s hands holding a similar cup. Large, strong, tan fingers dwarfing the delicate glass (they were glass back then). As a child I used to watch him, fascinated by how graceful he could be, the cup balanced in his left hand as the finger of his right hand swirled around the rim over and over again. I wouldn’t blink, not wanting to miss if he would spill a drop or get any of the red juice on his finger, but he never did. Now I hold my communion cup just like him, in my left hand as my right hand absently traces its thin plastic lip, unintentionally echoing my father. One of the many ways I’m like him without even meaning to be, I suppose.

Lately, memories like this have been flooding back unbidden though not unwelcome. Little specific moments of time past keep popping up in my memory, brought on by sights, sounds, even scents. Unexpected and strange. While the world changes around me, flowers blossom, trees leaf and grass turns green again, my mind keeps remembering people and moments past.

It’s hard to describe.

I’ve been reflecting on how odd it is that my limited human brain has the capacity to be the only place a specific version of a person exists anymore. Often, my memory is spotty or nonexistent, but then there are these pieces of people, vivid and real, that I will never forget.

An old boyfriend who was once young and sweet and kind but became violent, racist, and angry. I don’t think of him often, but as I stumbled across a video from “The Phantom of the Opera,” which he loved back then, memories came flooding back of the sweet him, pieces of him that no one other than me will remember.

My last serious crush, a funny, witty, complicated man who died a few years ago, suddenly and way too young. A picture of him appeared on Facebook this week, unattached to anything in particular, he just seems to be on more than one person’s mind lately. And in my mind he will always be laughing, beer in hand, twinkle in his eye, trying hard to make sure everyone around him is comfortable and noticed, including the socially awkward me.

Childhood friends I used to spend so much time with who slipped out of my life when I switched schools in the middle of my freshman year. The church I’m now attending is a newer version of my old church, so familiar faces from my past surround me, recognizable but not really known because of over two decades of interruption. I knew them in awkward youth, and they knew me. I wonder how much of that version of me they see when I walk into the room now. I wonder what I’ve missed about them in all these years, what has been lost or gained.

And when one of my former students posted online that he wonders why God took his dad away, didn’t answer his prayers to spare his dad’s life, I think of my dad. And I can tell him I know how he feels, because I was almost the exact same age, because I prayed that same prayer, because I had those same questions. Because I still miss him. And in my mind, beautiful bits and pieces of him still live on.

Out of all things created, the human mind is the most astounding to me. As the flowers in my backyard and in my favorite garden blossom back into life, my mind somehow resurrects people from my past. It’s a kind of haunting – memory – and not totally unpleasant. Sometimes it’s nice to wipe a tear or two away as each vignette slips by, to remember those I have loved and lost, to realize how bizarre life is because, though people are not permanent, they can stay the same forever in my mind.

I wonder, when I’m gone, which memories of me will haunt those who love me. What song will always whisk them back to a concert with me? What scent will remind them of a Disneyland trip with me? What odd mannerism will reflect my influence? What book will forever be associated with my name?

Until we meet again in heaven, what pieces of me will survive in minds and hearts? I will leave behind no children to bear my name, my legacy, just memories.  I pray they’ll be beautiful and silly, sweet and uplifting. May I live my life in such a way that my memory leads to a couple sweet tears instead of bitterness, to small smiles and deep sighs instead of anger, to joy and, ultimately, to thoughts of the love of Christ for each of us. A girl can dream.