Memories have a funny way of finding us
There’s something about memories that show up out of nowhere.
Sometimes it’s quilts, old canisters, cookie jars, or faded photographs. Sometimes it’s walking through a store and seeing a bag of peanut brittle sitting on a shelf. Suddenly, you can almost smell it before you even pick it up. You can taste it.
Funny thing is, I never really even liked peanut brittle that much as a kid. But I loved getting it every year anyway. Some things were never really about the thing itself, they were about who it came from.
And then there are the emails. You know the ones. The Shutterfly reminders that pop into your inbox out of nowhere.
“Remember this day?”
Suddenly you’re looking at your daughter’s first dance recital. Her hair pulled into that first ballet bun, a pink tutu, tiny ballet slippers, and a smile that seemed so big on such a little face.
One click turns into twenty minutes. Twenty minutes turns into an hour. Before you know it, you’re scrolling through pieces of your life you haven’t thought about in years.
It’s been five years now, and my mom has slowly been going through some of your things. Every so often she’ll send us pictures of something she found. Quilts. Blankets. Old canisters. Cookie jars. Crosses that once hung on the walls. Little ordinary things that somehow carry entire memories with them.
And every single thing seems attached to a story. A moment. A laugh. A conversation I can still hear in my head.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll probably keep saying it forever. It still doesn’t feel fair.
What I would give to sit on that porch swing again, gossiping with you like we always did. Talking about nothing important and somehow everything important at the same time.
Maybe this will be a shorter journal entry today. Maybe it’s just one of those nights spent wandering down memory lane. But I guess that’s part of grief too, learning how ordinary things can hold entire lifetimes inside of them.
Maybe that’s also why sisterhood, siblings, and family connections feel so sacred. There’s a history there that no one else fully understands. Shared memories. Shared people. Shared versions of life that only existed because you experienced them together.
I’m still figuring out what this little corner of the internet is supposed to be. A journal? A blog? A diary of sorts? I honestly don’t know yet.
But I do know this. Memories have a funny way of finding us when we least expect them.
And maybe writing them down is my way of holding onto them a little longer.
A Note About the Photo : Several of the afghans and quilt in this photograph belonged to family members, including my grandmother and my husband’s grandmother. The wardrobe they rest on was my grandmother’s. It seemed like the perfect photograph for a post about the memories we carry with us.
