The Tags of Memories....

Today marks the 6th month that my father has been gone. My heart has never really gotten over this. I miss him. There are things that I would like to talk to him about and stuff that I would like him to know. There are days that I know if he were still with us, he would call me; either to tease me relentlessly or to make me feel sorry for him because I live in warm California and he lives in cold New Mexico.

My Natalie had such a wonderful dream the other day....She dreamt that in her pocket she had these metal tags (she described them as dog tags) that she could pull out in a bunch. She said there were lots and lots of these tags and each one had a date on it. When she pulled out a tag, she could relive the memory related to that day with perfect recall. I thought that was such a wonderful concept, such a wonderful gift. There are many, many dates that I wish I could recall with a perfect memory. And on the flip side of that, I think there are dates that I would lock up somewhere, never to be thought of again. But as I was thinking about locking up some of the bad memories, it made me think that maybe those bad memories should be mixed into the group. Maybe without the bad, I would forget really how good the good were. Without the sad, I would never really know how happy the happy were. Without the ones that caused me such grief and sorrow, how could I possibly even experience the joy of the others?

So, my bunch of tags would be laced with the very best of my memories interspersed with the worst. I think most days I would close my eyes and just pick, let fate take over, and watch whatever was picked. But on days like today, I would definitely pick my memories; I would pick the days my daddy would pick me up and put me on his shoulders and walk me to the park or the days he took me out driving or the days my children were born or the days when I had no one to call but my daddy or the days he would call me and tell me that he was glad I got to talk to him or... the last day I saw him. I would pick the very best of the best.

I hope that those people I have touched, can pull out a good memory of me from their tags. I hope they can look at me and smile. I hope if I hurt them, they can look at a good memory and begin to forget and forgive. I hope the good memories always overshadow the bad. I promise if I ever pull a bad memory out of you, I will search and search until I find .... the best of the best.

XOXO