Every day I say her name

At the Salvation Army in Honesdale, at Lisa's Not Just Antiques, channeling Elizabeth's looking for something that would suit her style, I say her name over and over again, remembering the times we were there together, remembering how lost we would get looking at objects for the meaning they could bring to you, there, that antique pin in the shape of an airplane, or there, a rhinestone necklace that has three loops in concentric circles.  Those were keepers.  I still have them.

Sometimes she would try on dresses, and come out of the dressing room looking fabulous.  She could turn heads with her beauty.  It wasn't just physical.  She had something else, a spirit that was warm, and witty, and you wanted to know her better.

Elizabeth. Elizabeth. Elizabeth.


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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJune 28, 2013 at 5:08 PM

    If it is any comfort at all, you are not the only one speaking her name. People who only knew her from September to December still speak her name, and people who have never met her speak it, too. In those little tiny ways, she is not gone.
    A mother's love to you,
    Claire

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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