When I see Maria again, after nine months, when she orders lunch, I remember what she ordered last year. The tuna melt.
We are both quizzical as to why I would remember such a silly detail.
At the same lunch, I run into an old friend, Rebecca. I remember a silly detail about her husband's work. I remember that when she took a ballet class, twenty years ago, her feet shrunk a whole shoe size.
Deb, our other friend attending this lunch says, "I hope you also remember the important things."
"Me too."
We meet in the hospital elevator, a couple with whom we do humanitarian faith work. I ask if they will be staying at Disney World this summer. Last summer, they drove their trailer and stayed in the Disney trailer park for a month. This is what I think of when I see them.
I've learned that this isn't a phenomenon unique to me. So it is with dread, when I meet an old student or an old friend and they say, "Hey, do you remember...?"
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