Please remember, please remember me

In the screenplay of my life, there will be a scene in which I attend the memorial service for my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother, who died tragically close to my stepfather, their demises separated by only five days. And while we are sitting on the deck trying to forget why we are there, the widow, my aunt, will ask me too casually how my father is doing. And against all protocol and social etiquette, I will tell her the truth.

“He’s dying,” I’ll say. “He’s been dying for years.” And because I cannot stop myself, I will go on to fall apart. “It’s terrible to lose someone without actually losing them,” I’ll cry. “You’re not allowed to grieve, and yet you have lost a parent. And nobody understands. The worst part is that, by the time I’m actually allowed to grieve him, I will have forgotten more about him than I knew in the short time we had together. I find myself thinking about the day he actually goes and I’m called upon to speak about his life, and I won’t remember anymore the father I knew. I can’t even tell you what his favorite meal was anymore. His favorite place. His favorite movie. And that makes me sadder than it ever will to lose him.”

And the weight of what I have just said, and the circumstances in which it was said, will fall like a weight over the table causing a pregnant silence that seems to last hours. And then I will hear a tiny, fractured voice from the diminutive woman at the other end of the table, my mother, who will look up at the group from under damp eyelashes and say, “country fried steak.” In the midst of another uncomfortable silence, I will toss her a puzzled look and she’ll meet my eyes and say, “his favorite meal. It was country fried steak.”