The song Benjamin is playing repeatedly has a line about remembering.

"We remember, we celebrate your love, we believe."

Yesterday I forgot.

Although I could not articulate it, I was off kilter all day. There were Reasons I could plaster on the orneriness. I had cleared my day to attend a conference about autism. Who wants to be in that club? But the reality was the speaker was engaging, and gave me cause for gratitude. The twins were off with friends when I got home, and for the fifth time this week I did chicken chores alone. At thirteen the inevitability of their social life is bittersweet. Of course I want them to be too busy to cuddle Silkies, but they are my last. Cliches like flying the coop and empty nest are apropos.  

When I went to the fridge for a snack my attention passed over a photograph of John and me at the beach. Our smiles were deep. The possibility of feeling joy surprised me. 

That evening I sat next to my aunt at a concert, who reminded me that it was the anniversary of my mother's death. Bam. The feelings of disorientation had a name. Just the day before I had bent over a photo album honoring the brief life of a baby on the anniversary of his passing. Although I had never met him, I took that moment to remember him, and to celebrate his life. To believe that he mattered. 

I have a friend who has forgotten that she loves her husband. She might say that she doesn't anymore. But having witnessed my own amnesia enough times I know that forgetting is not the same as obliteration. 

Maybe I could send her a picture of the two of them smiling. At the beach.