Memory Beads

Beads on a string, falling one at a time into my hand. Each is unique; some are beautiful, some plain or even ugly. I hold each for a time, then it drops from my hand so that I can hold the next. I look at the bead in my palm, mesmerized by its rich, swirling colors . . . green, blue, purple. There are flecks of gold in the glass that create unexpected flashes of light as it moves.

Then I wonder, what was the bead before this one? Oh, a wooden bead with painted flowers. Or was that the one previous? Maybe it was the chunky, blue and white china bead. Or wasn’t I holding a pewter charm recently? It’s hard to remember all those beads – there are so many, and they all blur together in my mind. I’m more likely to revel in the bead I’m holding and wonder what the next bead will look like than to spend time remembering the beads that came before. That’s all we have, isn’t it? One bead at a time.

My mother died when I was sixteen. It was unexpected, and I cried a lot. But I also went on with my life, going back to school the next day, because that’s what made sense to me. There wasn’t a funeral. We got through the rest of the school year and then I went to live with my father and stepmother. Moving to a new school was difficult, and I threw myself into the academic work. I made some new friends, dated, was immersed in the daily minutiae of life.

A year after my mother’s death, my father tentatively asked me if I wanted to mark the occasion in some way. I was genuinely surprised; it hadn’t occurred to me to do anything of the kind. I missed my mother, felt sad sometimes about her death, but I didn’t dwell on it much, and it seemed odd to celebrate the day of her death. If anything, it made more sense to celebrate her birthday. In the end, I didn’t do either. There was no official remembrance. I spoke of her occasionally, to friends or family, but her presence faded from my life. She became an increasingly removed memory, evoking only the faintest twang of emotion.

It’s not that I didn’t love her. I did. I had a very close relationship with my mother, and I felt my loss keenly when she died. There is so much I wish I could have shared with her. I wish she could have lived to see me graduate college and get my Ph.D. She would have been pleased that my first post-doctoral position was at the University of Chicago, her alma mater, and I would have liked to hear her memories of the campus as we walked around Hyde Park. I wish she could have met my partner and they could have gotten to know each other, because I think they would have liked each other very much. I would have liked to have been able to have a relationship with her as an adult, rather than as a tempestuous adolescent.

But I’m a person who lives in the present, with an eye to the future. I’m not a particularly sentimental or nostalgic person – I just don’t spend much time thinking about the past. My memories of the past are not especially vibrant or emotionally intense. Indeed, I tend to have a poor memory of events, particularly of my childhood. And given my tendency to be busy and over-booked, I find it a challenge just to keep up with my present, much less have time to rifle through my memories of long ago.

Recently, though, I’ve come to realize that all I have of my mother is my memories of her. She only exists in our minds and a few scattered photographs and memorabilia. My memories, fading and incomplete, are all that hold her in my life. If I don’t spend some time with those recollections, they may disappear completely, and I will have truly lost her.

So I am embarking on a journey into my memory and the memories of those who knew her. I want to hold onto what I have of my mother and maybe even come to know her better. It’s a journey into a landscape I haven’t explored for a long time, and I don’t really know what I will find. Memory is uncertain, a shifting sand upon which to build knowledge. I cannot guarantee that what I find will be true or accurate. But it is still all I have.


Photo of Nancy Driessel Stearns (date unknown); I think the photo was taken by Victor Macarol, a multimedia artist in NJ