You can’t remember everything, Mom

Tonight, I was sitting in the carport having a moment to myself, lost, and all too aware of where I was, where I am, where I’ve been.  Nat walked out to smoke a cigarette with me.  I said, “You look great in that sweater.”  I asked where he got it, and he said, “It was Owen’s.”  I didn’t remember it as Owen’s, and he said…”You can’t remember everything, Mom.”

It’s not like I don’t realize my family and friends, his family and friends, have other memories that are unique to their lives with Owen, but mostly, I can only remember mine.  That makes sense, yes?  But, god, how many memories of Owen don’t belong to me?  More than I can imagine, I’m sure.  I am so very grateful that he was someone to you, because everything he was to me, is certainly not everything he was.   Owen’s mission was more than his message to me, his relationship with me, his partnership with me.  His message was for all of you.  

I’m still searching for Owen’s message.  I get pieces of it every day, so many before he was gone.  I hear parts that make sense in the big picture.  I see things that remind me that he wanted us to know things he saw, things he experienced, things he thought should be shared.  And, I feel inadequate to share them, even though he talked with me about them a LOT.  But, I often ask myself, what did he share with you?   What can I not remember, that you do?

Song for the night:  Goodbye Stranger, Supertramp  (If I’d read these lyrics in Owen’s journals, I wouldn’t have been surprised.  I may not have remembered them tonight in the carport, but on reading them again, I would have said, “Aah, right, I remember now.”  Much like Nat’s sweater that used to belong to Owen, this song belongs to us now.)

~ by Linda on December 18, 2008.