Fleeting

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying
-Excerpt from "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time", by Robert Herrick
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It's funny the way that memory works.  I, for example, am not always that great at remembering a person's name right after meeting them, memorizing lists of data, or remembering dates.  I'm better with songs and verses - I know all of the words to every song on my iPod.  And I did memorize the above poem after hearing it just once in Dead Poets Society.  I have also always had a fantastic memory for stories, and that includes the story of my own life.  I remember things no one else does, about an event, or a location, what a person wore, or the order in which something happened.  I remember senses, colors, feelings, all with vivid detail.  I remember what feels like every moment of my life with my husband.  But, in truth, I'm finding that there are things I'm already beginning to forget.

Like last night.  My Dad was flipping through the channels, and landed on the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost movie Hot Fuzz.  It's probably an obscure flick, I don't know.  I know it quite well though, because Ryan and I went to see it at the Regal Cinemas in Warrington the year we moved in together.  The movie is ridiculous, a parody of buddy cop action movies, and ends in a blaze of insane, almost cartoony, violence.  By the end of the movie, Ryan and I were both in tears laughing because it was so cleverly stupid.  So when my Dad had it on for a moment, I told him what a great movie it was.  Clearly, I use the term 'great' very loosely.  With my recommendation, he left it on.

As we reached the over-the-top climax of the movie, I very briefly had a clear as day vision of Ryan, doubled over with laughter, a huge smile on his face, trying to catch his breath and wiping tears from his eyes.  Ryan did this every so often, and it was one of my favorite things - when he would totally lose it in laughter, usually over something pretty stupid.  And in this moment, I remembered it so clear; what he looked like, what he sounded like, and how funny it was to me to see him laugh like that.  And then, a second later, it flitted away, and I struggled to pull the image back into view.  I had forgotten, until that moment, the joy I got from watching Ryan crack up laughing.  For the moment thinking of it, my heart became so full, and then deflated again just as quickly.

Like so many things since Ryan died, this vivid image presented itself only briefly, and then sank back into my brain.  It was like when there's a word on the tip of the tongue, so close yet so far away.  It's not that after that moment I couldn't recall the memory at all - the specific event is locked in my mind, as is the fact that Ryan had an incredibly vulnerable funny bone.  What I lose is the incredibly vivid, visceral memories where all of my senses are involved.  These are full color, 3D, tactile memories.  They have smell, texture, temperature.  They come along only every once in a while - the other day it was a vivid memory of what it was like when Ryan would walk up to me from across the room and casually kiss me hello.  The image is there, as though it happened yesterday, as though I'm living it again for a moment, and then so quickly gone again, as though twenty years have gone by.  I can't seem to pull it forward at will - not those full sensory images.  They attack as they like, and slink away with equal speed.

And what's most frustrating is that these memories keep getting farther and farther away, without new Ryan experiences to replace them.  And I'm the only one around who can remember these details of our story.  There is no one else to talk to about it, no one who would remember.  As the memories start to fade from my head, will they still exist anywhere?  It's like that old tree falling in the forest again.  Did it make a sound?  It did to me, but not to anyone else who's around to talk about it.  Maybe I'm not even remembering the sound correctly - maybe it made a different sound.  There's no one with whom to cross-reference.

Then there's the other gut wrenching truth - that as much as these pictures in my head ease the grief for a moment, they cannot compare to reality.  And the reality is just gone.  I'm never going to see Ryan laughing like that again.  Not ever.  The finality of it is crushing.  The moment I have these flashes, all I want is to experience the real thing again, and I know I never will.  I ache for it.

Maybe I'll always continue to have these flashes of clear, lucid memory of my life with Ryan.  I hope they'll always flit back into my head when I'm least expecting it.  It catches me off guard and takes my breath away, sometimes brings tears to my eyes, but unlocking that portion of my brain even for a second makes me know for sure that it did all happen - the great love of my life was real, and I can always keep that.  I can hold it even if I don't have him to share it with anymore.  I hope.  But, even if that's true, maybe this is all a good reminder of an undeniable truth:  much in life is fleeting.  Nothing can last forever, and most of the good stuff will end before we want it to.  It comes quickly, and then is gone, without our being able to control it.

Gather ye rosebuds.