Memories

Oola Breen-Ryan Grade 6

Mia: I’m going to miss her.

I can understand, Mia. Losing your daughter like that must have been hard.

Mia: It was just so sudden, you know?

Can you tell me about your favorite memory of her?

Mia: Yeah, let’s see…when she was in ffth grade, we were going for a walk and she found a baby bird just lying in the middle of the road. I wanted to let it be, but she picked it up and put it back in its nest. It sounds weird, I know, but I’ll always just think of her in that moment. It was just so startling for me—for all of us—when she passed away. She had always been this kind fgure in our lives, and then she was gone.

Wow, Mia! Thank you for sharing that.

Mia: You remind me so much of her, and not just in the name. I remember she wanted to name you Emiline, but I thought that it was strange for kids to be named after their parents. She was determined, though, so she hid the birth certifcate from me for the frst three years of your life. She convinced me that your name was Ella.

I’m going to miss her, too.

Mia: Now that she’s just a memory, all of the small little details about her life that didn’t seem important before are now the most signifcant things in the world.

She really was an amazing person.

Mia: She was. She really, really was.

Lennie: Oh, hello, Emiline—it’s a bit late to be checking out books from the library.

I’m not here to read. I have a few questions. Do you mind?

Lennie: No, not at all.

Okay. What do you think your favorite memory is of her?

Lennie: I didn’t know her very well…she just came into this library quite a lot when she was younger.

What was her favorite book?

Lennie: She absolutely loved “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”. She had read it so many times, the covers were practically falling of. One time, another kid tried to take it out, and she pulled the fre alarm just to keep him from reading it. She was never afraid to express her opinion, I remember, and she would always do the right thing—aside from the fre alarm incident.

Ha, that’s funny.

Lennie: The library will feel empty without her, but her memory will live on.

Hi. I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about her. I hope this doesn’t seem intrusive.

Mr. Haroldson: Of course not, Em. Ask away.

Um, okay. What was your favorite memory of her?

Mr. Haroldson: Hmmm, there were so many. I’ll always remember the day that I proposed to her. I took her out to dinner at a fancy restaurant, where I had coordinated a musical arrangement with the band playing. Anyway, right as the song was about to begin, she got up and walked away. When the band started playing, I panicked, followed her, and ended up proposing to her in a bathroom stall. When I asked if she would marry me, though, she laughed. And I thought, Oh no, is this too soon? So I told her that she didn’t have to say yes if she didn’t want to. She started cracking up. Then guess what she said.

What?

Mr. Haroldson: She had intentionally led me to the bathroom stall so there wouldn’t be so many people watching us. (*Laughs*). How she found out that I was planning on proposing, I don’t know, but she said yes and that’s all that matters. Your mother certainly was a unique woman.

That’s sweet, Dad.

Emiline: I think the thing that I’ll remember most about her was the way she was always the kindest person in the room.

She was an extrovert, and she was nice, and she was caring for everyone.

I wish she was more than just a memory.

Are people ever really just memories?