I Forgot To Remember

I forgot to remember.

The heart has a list that the mind forgets. Those people who touch your life in small ways when you are growing up but fade into the past along with those things that you wish to forget. The sweet neighbor forgotten along with the bad haircut decision that lasted for months. The childhood friend that you shared all your secrets with is lost along with the pain of your parent’s divorce.

As I lay in bed last night, trying to fall asleep, the face of a boy I had long forgotten about floated in from the ocean of obscurity that is now known as my “memory.”  He was the much older brother of a girl I knew as a child, although she was not a close friend. His name was Charlie. He had shoulder length dark hair that always looked slightly greasy, his face was scarred from acne and he had the most amazing, beautiful blue eyes you would ever want to see. He always had a “hot” car as we called them back in the sixties and seventies, the hood cut out to make room for the fancy carburetor and engine alterations he personally made to his ride. He knew about cars and was always there to lend a hand if you had a problem with your automobile. I also remember he was the guy who checked the thickness of the ice for us in the winter to make sure it was safe to skate on.  He was the one who started the bonfires and hung around to keep an eye on us younger kids. He was the big brother to the entire neighborhood when many of us felt the absence of our own older brothers who were serving our country in Vietnam. Charlie was friendly, liked by kids and parents alike and when my sister called me last year to tell me of his passing, I was shocked to realize I had forgotten all about him over the many years.

The last time I saw Charlie was at the funeral for his younger brother, Chris, who had driven his motorcycle into the back of a tractor -trailer truck on the entrance ramp to the interstate. I remember Charlie looked dazed. I am not sure it even registered with him who I was or that I was there when I shook his hand and offered my condolences but perhaps later he saw my name written in the tiny book by the front door of the funeral home and took some comfort that I remembered Chris. I don’t know for sure – I never spoke to him after that day.

If I try to remember all of the neighbors that came in and out of my life all those many years ago I become discouraged as their names now elude me. Perhaps that doesn’t really matter because I do remember the people that they were, how they affected my life, for better or for worse as the case may be. We, as humans wish to be remembered after we are gone from this earth. Great deeds are accomplished and horrific crimes are committed to insure our places in the chronicles of someone’s history. We hope someone remembers our name.

Charlie had no children of his own to remember him, it will be left up to his nieces and nephews and to the friends that are still around who remember him and think of him fondly. I am writing this as a tribute to Charlie and so that I will never again forget to remember.