I keep watching the video from our 5 year anniversary, and looking through albums with Audrey. This afternoon we looked through the "babymoon" album at Turks and Caicos. The one where we are so full of excitement for the new life I carried with us there. We wade in the transparent sea there smiling. Then we looked through the Korea trip album. We were married in July and visited Korea in February. There I am wearing a hanbuk and smiling awkwardly as I meet all of your relatives. There we are at the burial site of your grandmother on a hill of dried grass in a small Korean village in the countryside. We are newly married- I am introduced to the culture I have adopted in you. It is mine too now.
I hate it when people tell me at least I have my memories. "No one can take your memories from you- at least you have that."
The memories are a vessel of pain right now. They are all that I was and we were. They are all that is lost. They are finished- complete. I can not travel back in time to tell them- to warn them. They are ignorant of what lies ahead as they should be. But now there will be no more trips, no more poses for photographs, no more occasions or celebrations, or private jokes. I have no one to say, "Remember when..." to. Instead, every memory falls to emptiness.
I keep a record of those that pop into my mind in a small journal- writing them quickly before I forget. I will look through them from time to time and remember. Maybe one day they will make me smile. But not today.