The Grace to Forget

For one cursed to remember, forgetting is a gift.

I’ve had to live with the curse of my memory. It might sound like I’m more than a little extreme in my description, blame the fairy tales I grew up reading. So there’s a part of me that operates on charms and curses and wishes and pumpkins-turned-coaches. I call my memory a curse because I remember, long after everyone else have forgotten. I remember that today would have been my parents’ anniversary. I remember details and dates and things people say. I remember weathers and colors and smells. I remember. Even the stuff I would love to stop remembering.

I know it is unseemly to be envious, but I envy the people who can block out things. I envy the people with short memory spans, the ones who easily forget. OK, in the moment, it might be a little annoying that they forget seemingly basic things. In the long run, though, sometimes you want to forget things. And it’s hard for me to forget things.

Especially in grief, I remember everything. I remember the good. The silly laughters and conversations over steaming bowls of noodles. The random phone calls in the middle of the night. I remember the big moments, like the day my dad passed and the day I graduated high school. I remember the night mum came to watch me in a musical when I got to play one of the main characters. (No, this was not the time I played a nun. I - unsuccessfully - try to block that one from my memory. ) I remember the failings, mostly mine. The times we fought. The times I was impatient with her. The times I said things I didn’t mean. The times I was too busy to spend time with mum. I remember quite vividly the pain of loss. It’s been almost four months, but I remember the pain of loss just like it was yesterday. I remember everything, and - honestly - remembering can get exhausting.

Every once in a while, though, I receive a little sliver of grace. The grace to forget. That split second when I forget that mum’s gone. These little slivers of grace show up at the most unexpected times. It’s happened several times in the moment between sleep and full consciousness. It’s happened while I’m cooking. It’s happened the moment I checked into a new vacation spot. The last time it happened to me was a couple of hours ago. I found myself a little bored and was procrastinating actually writing this post. Sometimes, when I’m in a comfortable state of boredom, I would pick up the phone and call mum. And I did just that. I picked up the phone to call mum. In that split second, mum was alive and well. For that very short moment, all is right in the world.

It’s a gift, the ability to forget. It’s a little spark of hope. At the same time both a reminder and a promise that all will be well. That there will be a time when pain, loss, and tears are no longer. When this life, with the hurts and the struggles is but a dream. Somehow, in that split second of forgetting, the past, present, and future collides. The time before loss, my current reality, and a soul-deep assurance of things to come. Somehow, in that short moment, there’s hope. I can’t even begin to explain how that works.

Hope, I realize, is an unexplainable thing. It’s small. It exists in slivers of moments. It’s elpis, a small spirit, the last to dwell in Pandora’s box. For Emily Dickinson, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all.” Of that “thing with feathers”, Miss Dickinson explains that it is unabashed in the storm.

I can’t explain hope, but I know that the short moments of grace is part of that hope. It’s when my fondest memories and the belief that anchors me dances together, a choreographed masterpiece in a single moment when I forget. So yes, I’m grateful for these moments and the grace to forget.