Memories

My grandmother gave me a cake stand.  I didn't really know why I needed it.  I passed from one spot to another in my kitchen trying to find the best location to store the awkward box.  Several times, it nearly made its home at the thrift store as my donation of useless items.  Yet, I couldn't let it go.  When we moved, it went into a stack of small heavy boxes needing special attention.  I had a baby then, 6 months old. 
    That baby was going to turn one in a couple of days.  So I pulled out that cake stand and dusted off the box.  I slipped it out of its packaging and made a cake.  Then, I remembered.  "Every cake deserves a place of honor."   The thing is, I just needed someone needing a cake to be honored. 
    Today, my second baby celebrated his six birthday.  We had a casual potluck with a dozen families.  He helped me make a cake in the morning, gluten and dairy free.  We put the cake on the crystal cake stand and decorated the top with Star Wars action figures.  We served the cake and my son beamed from ear to ear.  I was so busy coordinating the goings on of the party that I never did get to taste the cake.  But, dang, it sure looked honored up there on that crystal cake stand.
    My grandmother is getting older.  She isn't the same any more.  I miss her already.  I have a necklace that she gave my sister one time when she was downloading her stuff from her home that she still shares with my grandfather.  It was too small for my sister so my sister gave it to me.  I wear it nearly everyday.  I spin the gold chain in my fingers when I get nervous.  I remember.
   Sometimes the memories aren't specific.  They are moments in time as I grapple at my memories to figure out what grade in school I was when something happened.  Then, there are memories that are much more specific.  9/11/01.  Today is the tenth anniversary of the fateful day.  Wait, day isn't quite right.  The anniversary of that episodic moment in time.
   People all around me remembered where they were ten years ago.  I cried a bit reading or hearing each story.  These are moments in time that don't need grappling for specifics.  We remember.  We remember sitting on the edge of our beds getting ready for work and being stunned, glued to the TV, unable to slip on our high heels.  We remember teaching teenagers and children, hearing the news, and walking into our classrooms with the overwhelming burden to decide how to protect our children from something we don't fully understand, the big, bad wolf.  How will we answer the questions about the bad guys?  We will remember worrying about our friends and family who worked near the Towers or in Washington DC.  We will remember checking our phones waiting for them to call.  And, for too many, you will remember being there that day.
   Ten years.  Ten years have passed, and I remembered.  I brought cookies to the neighborhood fire station with my MOMS Club for several of those years.  I have ran through scenarios if that happened here in my home in the heart of America.  What do I tell my children to teach them?  I have no answer to why someone would do that.
   When I passed the bag full of cookies to the firefighter today, I almost said, "Happy 9/11 Day."  That sounded way wrong in my head.  So I didn't say it.  But, I wanted to reach out and tell him I knew that their heart just didn't sing quite as high as it is supposed to today on the tenth anniversary of September 11.
   Yes, memories are vague and specific, sweet and bitter, and warm and frightening.  We live our lives trying to be present in the moment.  Sometimes we look over our shoulders.  That looking is not always a good thing.  Yet, it is our memories that teach us that we are vulnerable and strong all at the same time.
   I just washed the crystal cake stand and put it back in its box with my memories of my grandmother.  Someday, my children will look at a cake they have made sitting on a plain, boring plate.  They will remember their birthdays with me and a crystal cake stand.  I will probably get a phone call requesting they borrow the stand.  It will be pulled out of its box which will be tattered and bronzed by then.  The air will fill with memories.  But, they aren't my memories of my grandmother telling me to use a cake stand because every cake needs a place of honor.  No, their memories will have a life of their own.