Untold Truths
Upon me writing this, I reflected on the cherishing and staining memories that have stuck with me during my life. Many of them happy, many of them sad. Many of them about my little brother. I am still surprised most of the time that I remember these things, and I wonder how it is I do so. One thing I have observed while writing this is that my favorite memories usually revolve around my family.
September 11th, 2001
I can not remember clearly. I was only three. My parents worked near the Pentagon. We lived near the Pentagon. When my father got the news, he quickly left work to pick me up at school. We walked the small way home. It must have seemed like countries away.
Blocks
We were walking what seemed like miles. They were New York City blocks. I asked “Where are we going?” “When will we get there?”
“Soon! Just a couple more blocks…I can see it,” my aunt said.
Turns out, she was wrong. It wasn’t a couple. It was ten. But we had already walked ten blocks. Our journey finally ended from East 33rd Street to East 10th Street. Only there awaited seven flights of stairs.
Miley Cyrus
At this time, she was Hannah Montana. I was obsessed. My aunt (different aunt) took me to see her perform in Bryant Park. Except we got there late. That day was very important because we found out you can be arrested for cutting a line.
….
I was young. Even too young to realize I was in the backseat of a car with a drunk driver.
His birth
I was ten years old. I stood in the hallway with my father. We had tea from the cafeteria to hold us over. When we returned to the floor, I watched as people, doctors I guess, walked into the room one after another. There were at least ten in the room. They all shut the door behind them. It was only until moments later that I was no longer an only child.
His laugh
He started laughing. I looked at him, amazed at what he found hilarious. I began laughing. My laugh made him laugh. We went back and forth until we couldn’t anymore. It was contagious. This started when he was maybe two.
His truck
It was his fourth birthday. He could not stop talking about garbage trucks. Thats where the idea came from. We were ambitious. We said “how hard could it be?” Turns out, making a homemade garbage truck birthday cake is a lot more complicated than it seems.
Andermatt
A glacier, one of Switzerland’s best. We hiked it. We slept upon it. It was beautiful. It was cold. It was unbelievably sad. We were told it would no longer exist on this Earth in ten years.
His lap
We were lucky! We had two seats against the right side of the plane. Delta, I think it was. We were coming home from Switzerland. We were tired. We had not slept for almost an entire month. But he would not sleep. He watched 21 Jump Street, as I somehow curled up in his lap for the entire eight hours back.
Knowth
He had keys to what seemed like the whole of Ireland. When he finally found the right one, he unlocked the gates. The tunnels were lit up. They were small. At one point we had to crawl on our knees. Once we reached the center there was nowhere else to go. That is where it lied. History dating back to anywhere between 2500 and 2000 BC.
…. ….
It was two a.m. They woke me up. They were fighting. Again.
Christmas
We were all there. We had gathered from allover – Washington, D.C., New York, Cleveland, and Houston. Little did we know it would be our last Christmas all together.
Rolling Thunder
I woke up early that day. My mom drove me to the Key Bridge Marriott hotel. Outside, it looked like a convention. There were motorcycles everywhere! I hoped on the back of the first one in line. We left. A group of police officers, also on motorcycles, escorted us. When we arrived to the parking lot, there were thousands. It’s incredible to say that on that day I rode with the founder of a massive movement to remember missing, fallen, and prisoners of war.
If I were to pass on any advice it would be to write reflectively more, or at least once. Writing in this manner reveals amazing thoughts and truths from within our lives. For example, I have learned that, ironically, the ones you love not only give you some of the most precious memories, but also the ones you want to forget. All things considered, we are able to recall memories for a reason and because of that I think it is important to do so.
