At Diwali, I updated my Facebook status with Diwali greetings and remembering the neighbours from my childhood home. Where we lived, you'd always share your religious occasions with your neighbour, regardless of their faith. Aunty Ruku, our Tamil neighbour would send over a plate of Diwali treats, as we would at Eid and even during Ramadaan.
Another neighbor, from two doors further down the street commented on her memory of Aunty Ruku, and then another did too. Some of their memories sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite put them together.
It was only 40 years ago! How can I not remember? How can I be so old?
Now I feel an urgency to capture all these memories, or what's left of these memories, before they're lost forever. I want to write them all down and save them, cherish them. But then I wonder why? Who will cherish them? My wise child says so that I can enjoy them again in 40 years. She was kind enough not to add, "When you remember even less". When I read the stories in 40 years will I even remember who these characters were in the story of my life. Will they still make me smile and warm my heart as they do now?
Maybe these stories will tell my child, and maybe one day my grandchildren, stories of my childhood. Children can never imagine their parents as children. Each memory, every story is a thread in the fabric of who we are, and why we are who we are. Perhaps it is worth preserving for understanding alone.
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