On a paper place mat, in a restaurant in Rockland, Maine there was a story about never forgetting your loved ones. The place mat was scalloped edged and covered with squares of different ads in brown ink. Joe’s Towing Company (cartoon guy waving out a tow truck window), Andrea’s Flowers (drawing of roses in a vase), Fax It Fast! (stick figure running with paper in his balled hand), The Law Offices of Schwartz, Kaplan & Kirn (fancy scroll work around the phone number)…Hidden among the sales pitches were the words about not forgetting the loves of your life. Carry them still.
In the book I just finished, Boy’s Life, McCammon takes that place mat’s secret sentiment a step further, “I wish there was a place you could go and sit in a room like a movie theater and look through a catalog of a zillion names and then you could press a button and a face would appear on the screen to tell you about the life that had been. It would be a living memorial to the generations who have gone on before and you could hear their voices though those voices had been stilled for a hundred years” (p 346).
Imagine that for just a second, if you will. Imagine sitting in that dark, silent theater. The book of names on your lap. Before you open it, do you know who you want to see again? Do you know who shouldn’t be forgotten? Or, has it become too late and someone has slipped through the cracks of your memory and all you want is to be reminded again? Or, do you want to see someone you’ve never met? Me, I want to meet kisa’s paternal grandmother. I think it goes without saying that I want to meet my namesake. To hear her voice. There is a whole list of names I could push buttons for!
The place mat is long gone. The theater of memories doesn’t exist (yet). What will you do to keep loved ones who have been silenced alive?
~*LunaSea*~ 