November 5
Remember me when I am gone, far gone into the silent land. But if remembering makes you sad, then rather forget me and smile than grieve.
Remember (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Remember me when I am gone, far gone into the silent land. But if remembering makes you sad, then rather forget me and smile than grieve.
At some point an anniversary passes without your noticing. Only a few days later does the date come back to you, and instead of relief you feel something like guilt. As if you had abandoned a watch that no one ever assigned you.
In memory, pain plays a strange double role. It hurts, and at the same time it acts as a kind of proof: as long as it hurts, the bond seems unbroken. When it eases, you may find yourself wondering whether some of the affection has gone with it.
But the pain and the person it has settled around are not the same. Some things return only once the grief grows quieter: a turn of phrase, a way of covering the mouth with a hand when laughing, an impatience that used to annoy you. Details like these sit badly with solemnity. They arrive in passing, while you're washing up or on your way to work.
Whether this is still remembrance or already a little forgetting can't be neatly separated. You catch yourself smiling at that impatience, on an afternoon with no occasion at all. Once, you would have needed a date for that.
