Tonight the image came to mind of Cory eating chocolate-chip cookies, which made me unspeakingly sad all at once, and I thought to myself, woman, get ahold of yourself!
Who wants to read about how she used to grab five (exactly five) Chips Ahoy and a cup of milk, and hunker down wherever she felt like to dunk them to her little heart's delight?
Well, I do. I've got every memory intact, but if I live long enough to have trouble remembering, someone please read me this so I can have that picture in my mind. I treasure it.
And really? This is what it is. A good cookie-eating memory can be the thing that undoes you after a long day of work, keeping your mind busy with the business of the living. Such is grief. It doesn't play fair. And because I'm a list maker at heart, my mind pulled up similar footage of her drinking a soda, eating pizza, soup, seafood, pasta...
She was across my table for many years. And sometimes, many times, it was just us two. She made a fabulous dining partner, from the beginning of her life to the end.
Get ahold of myself? Pshaw. I am with Queen Victoria on this whole mourning thing. Did you know that not only did she wear only black for forty years after the death of her beloved, but she also continued to have her servants carry hot water to his chamber every single day for his morning shave?
She wrote this to her daughter after the death of Prince Albert, "How I, who leant on him for all and everything—without whom I did nothing, moved not a finger, arranged not a print or photograph, didn't put on a gown or bonnet if he didn't approve it shall go on, to live, to move, to help myself in difficult moments?"
I feel Queen Victoria. She gets it. I bet she had a cookie-eating memory or two of her own.
No comments:
Post a Comment