Collective Memories

You know how families have collective memories about certain things or events? It could be an odd sentence or phrase that only family insiders get, or the mention of a particular place, time or relative that conjures up the same idea. I could be wrong, but I feel like all families have this and it is what makes them unique. I believe it might also be the thing that makes new foster placements or adoptees feel like outsiders – they don’t get the references or the lingo. Sometimes, the original happenings regarding the one-liner or why we all roll our eyes when someone mentions Aunt Gladys and the full moon, are forgotten and just the group response is understood.

 

On the day my grandfather passed away my family shared in some of these memories, using the unintended time together to begin to heal from our loss. After we wept and hugged one another, after the funeral home completed the paperwork and took my grandfather away into the cold night, we sat and remembered when. I accidentally revealed a secret to my cousin regarding the time my grandparents puppy sat their dog Charlie. They had left the dog alone in the house briefly so they could tend to the farm animals. It was after dinner and so some scraps were left on the table, but they pushed the chairs in and the dog was too small to jump up on the table, so they thought things would be fine. When they came home, less than 30 minutes later, the dog greeted them from atop the table. He had eaten every last morsel on the table, chicken bones, fat, left-over baked beans and the entire half pound of butter they had just put in the butter dish. My grandmother was frantic. She was told the dog could not have table scraps and she worried about what these food items would do to his unaccustomed system. So, she walked him up and down the dirt driveway until she was sure he would not meet his demise from his over-indulgence. She told my dad the tale the next day and he laughed hilariously, since it was obvious the dog was fine. He gleefully told the story to my family, swearing us to secrecy since my grandmother didn’t want my cousin or aunt and uncle to find her dog-sitting skills negligent. This was several years ago and I had assumed they had finally been left in on the secret. They hadn’t been, but they are now!

 

Primero has been with me long enough now that we have some of our own “remember when” events to share. We sometimes talk about how things were before the little ones moved in or how each of us perceived one another the first few times he came to spend the weekend. He remembers when the rotten transmission on my car left us sitting along the turnpike for hours, alternating turning the car on for warmth and music and trying to occupy our time. He remembers this time fondly, while I remember the headache and financial cost of the towing and car repairs. He also remembers us walking roughly two miles to the closest Redbox for movies more favorably than I. Still, it feels good to have our own shorthand that we share as a family. It makes us feel legit.