My mother believes that every grief recalls, or at least summons the memory of every other grief. And I can’t help but think if that is so, then it must also be true for joy. Just as it must also be when the seasons turn it brings back every other season or maybe just the first. As in the first last time you ever experience something. I remember hearing Billy Joel playing The Longest Time in the other room on the stereo while I was in the other room doing something else, and I ran to where the music was coming from thinking it might be the last time I ever hear that song. I was only a kid, and surprised by my mother with the cassette case in her hand, and I realized we could play the song any time we wanted. Even when it’s not on the radio, you can bring it back by rewind or fast forward, to the precise moment the song begins. And not only that every time you hear the song is also every other time you’ve heard the song. Every age you become is also every age you’ve ever been. Which is why I feel like a child as the days grow shorter and longer and I’m rushing from the other room to see everything before it passes, and I forget there’s nothing to remember.
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