This Morning, Tonight, Always

This morning I have your blue dinosaur in my pocket at work.
Tonight, I’ll go home and listen to the album “Either/Or” By Elliott Smith.
You introduced him to me when I was 15. Every year on the second of December, 
I sit with a glass of whiskey and the hauntingly sad yet beautiful voice of Mr. Smith. 
Every year I’m still sad, but celebrate the things you taught me.
I love you, Lizzie.

How Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be re-created—not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

> From A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry