Remembrance

My mom just sent me this picture, which she found among her collections of photographs (as a scholar and historian, my mom is the best curator of the family's past), to remind me of a February 14, 2007 post on this blog.

On that entry, written the month after I started this autobiographical journey in January 2007, I talked about my abuela Jo (now long gone) and how she surprised me with her loving phone call that Valentine's Day. How I miss my dear abuela.

I also talked about my beloved titi Bebi, who now has dementia and lives in a nursing home, and how she took this photo of me (those are oversized pink curlers on my head) when I ran outside one afternoon to play, clad only in my old-lady panties (and, it appears, my pantuflas or slippers).

So, so much has changed (for both the better and the worse) in the past six years. Time goes by so quickly that it's hard to keep track of how we've felt or what we've said or what has meant a lot to us. I'm so thankful to my mom for pointing me back to this past of the past and for finding this photograph.

Because, even though time marches on irrevocably, and we lose touch with (or actually lose) those we love so much, I can still see my self in this old photograph. Because, when all is said and done, the past is never past until we forget.