What We Remember

 

What We Remember

I was talking to my cousin the other day about some odd memories we shared. I remembered the vise his father used in his workshop. My cousin owns it now. We remembered his big brother howling into the laundry chute scaring us into believing that the bathroom was haunted. We remembered throwing interesting things into the chute and racing them down. 

Memories are the glue that holds families together. When we can no longer share physical space due to distance or circumstances, we keep close in memories. Remembering family stories, trips, experiences, and members brings us together. We remember Uncle Joe who entertained us with amazing whistles we could never duplicate. We remember Aunt Mary’s lasagna and Aunt Grace’s technicolor hair. The time we caught seventeen snapper fish off the pier in ten minutes. Early mornings watching the sun rise over a foggy beach. Dipping our toes into the frigid water and daring each other to jump in. The freedom of riding bikes wherever we wanted to go. Gathering around a wood fire on summer evenings to tell scary stories.

Family stories stitch us together. Nana remembered growing up as the eldest of twelve in Brooklyn and her brothers who didn’t live past childhood. Nonna traveled to America in third-class steerage with her brothers after WWI entering through Ellis Island. Aunts and uncles told stories about life in the old country. Cousins laughed as rowboats sank, forts collapsed, and games of Monopoly went on all summer. Forgotten objects found in the attic, cards from our parents or grandparents, family photos stretching back to the 1800s, awaken a treasure of memories.

My father’s stories about his childhood ring in my ears — some true and some wildly exaggerated but just as cherished. He walked two miles to school every day, uphill in the snow, and drank a gallon of milk a day. How my grandmother laughed when we asked her about his stories. Dad moaned about how terrible it was to be sent to Arizona alone in his teens to treat his asthma — neglecting to mention that he was the president of this class, captain of his baseball team, and had his own horse while there. Seventeen-year-old Dad trying out for a major league baseball team in the 1940s. His hands shook so hard he could barely catch a ball. Nineteen-year-old Dad meeting the love of his life at a St. Patrick’s Day dance.

Mom told us of her “accidental” birth in Italy while her mother visited her family, unaware of the coming blessed event. She remembered her father marching his young family over the Brooklyn Bridge every Sunday in the 1930s to breathe the fresh air of America. Her family worked in their restaurant serving customers in the dining room and laughing in the kitchen.  

Memories are the beating heart of a family. Keeping them alive keeps us alive. Sharing them brings us close. This Thanksgiving, when we are far apart, let us keep one another close in memory and in love.