Thanks for the Memories

There was a double rainbow in the sky the other day. I went to text you and ask if you remember making rainbows in your backyard with the garden hose.

Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” came on the radio during my drive home. Do you remember your babysitter, Vicky, who listened to this album on repeat all summer and humoured us and our endless dance routines? She was double-jointed and we begged her to show us how her elbows bent. That must have been a very long July for her. Remember that?

We played Barbies past the age when we wanted any other friends to know. I’d carry mine in a grocery bag over to your house and we played for hours in your basement. There was that time that you filled your Barbie pool with water and claimed your mom had given her blessing (she had not).

Remember all the jumps we made up in my pool? I still do them sometimes with my kids, despite their protests. The Sprinkler, the Granny, the Dolly Parton. We were swimming stars.

One time you told me that your cousin blew a bubble so big that when it popped she had to have an operation to remove the gum from her head. I use that story to teach my students about tall tales. You were so convincing.

I was devastated the day you sat me down and said you might be moving to be closer to your grandma’s house. That was until you clarified it was one block over. Yes, those 500 metres would be a real time-saver in a two hour drive.

Remember when we went to church together and saw the older man make change in the collection plate? He dropped in a twenty and took his time rummaging around for smaller bills. We couldn’t stop gawking, then we couldn’t stop laughing.

We made our own band and tried to sell tickets to a concert on your front porch. Remember when we tried to sell the mud pies we’d made from actual mud? Or when we went door to door selling pebbles from your driveway?

Biking riding. Remember when we were allowed to go all the way around the block without asking first? And how we would trade bikes? Remember your yellow bike and how it would always skin the inside of our ankles?

I came over once and you were low-key showing off how you’d solved your Rubik’s cube. I pretended not to notice that you’d just moved the stickers around. You always were a bit of a rascal.

I think of you almost every day – in one way or another. When I make spaghetti I think about eating raw noodles in your kitchen. When I bake I remember your mom saying you had to ask your brother if he wanted to lick a beater. You whispered it as quietly as you could so you’d have plausible deniability when he (shockingly) didn’t hear and so we got both. Every time I stack the dish rack way too high, I want to text you a photo and see if you can top it.

We became friends so long ago when we were so little that I cannot recall a time I didn’t know you, you’ve just always been in my life. Even when we grew up and moved away, some random memories always made us reach out to check in and ask, “do you remember…?”

I remember.

There are memories that our siblings might share with the two of us, that we’ve told other people, that we experienced as a group. Our parents recall things we’ve long forgotten. But there are some that only you and I hold.

And now you’re gone and it’s down to me.

So I will remember for the both of us.