My parents have left, and they've taken J with them; she will spend two weeks with them on the Winter Prairies being chased by mosquitoes and being spoiled. She lived the first 11 years of her life on Prairies. She was there long enough to remember, and has been back to visit enough for the memories to remain somewhat intact. But I wonder if she remembers the same way I do, for her memories must be of other things, of school yards or of skate ponds or of her mother passed out on a dusty piece of furniture with the tv blaring in the background. I don't know.
I remember Ralph Klein when I think of the Winter Prairies. Although he likely hasn't got long for this world, his ridiculous self-satisfied smile is part of my history. And the King Eddy, and St. Louis Hotel. The university, with its neverending construction, and Electric Avenue, 17th Avenue, the C-Train. Place Concord towering over the Bow River and giving the arrogant impression that nothing could ever, would ever, block my view of the river. The Warehouse, the Republik, the Ship & Anchor. Kat. Yvette. Paul, Dana, Julie, Tony. Peter. Jason, Jeff, and Dave. Kristin and Dan and Brent. Colleen and Mum and Dad. And Jaimie. And Shawn. All these people I loved and hated and and struggled with, and away from. All of us all tangled up together and trying to breathe. And then I think J's memories are probably, though with a different cast of characters, just exactly like mine.
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2 comments:
I have always wondered if a substantial quantity of good memories are enough to quash the bad ones. I, from a personal point of you, have no idea if this is the case. Or maybe pushing those bad memories into deep corners is a bad thing.
There is a lot to be said for finding things out over a course of time, but sometimes I wish I had all the answers right now so I could set about putting it all right.
When Colleen died, my friend Jesse, whose mother also died when he was a teenager, told me that one of the things he resented after he lost his mother was the way his family talked about her as if she had been a saint. No one wanted to say anything bad about her now that she was gone. But for him, it made his memories of her confused because he knew the real person, with all her flaws. He couldn't recognize his mother in the descriptions other people provided.
I took that very much to heart. We try to remember my sister as a whole person, realistically. We try to acknowledge J's memories of the bad parts as well as the good. So she knows it all was real and true, and so she knows that it's okay to be flawed. I hope we have this right. And like you, I hope very much that the good memories outweigh the rest.
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