Dory: No. No, you can’t… STOP. Please don’t go away. Please?
No one’s ever stuck with me for so long before. And if you leave… if you leave… I just, I remember things better with you. I do, look. P. Sherman, forty-two… forty-two… I remember it, I do. It’s there, I know it is, because when I look at you, I can feel it. And-and I look at you, and I… and I’m home.
Please… I don’t want that to go away. I don’t want to forget.

This line, if you haven’t figured it out already, is from Finding Nemo. One of David’s favorite movies. One of mine too.

I remember hearing this line for the first time, and my stomach just twisted in knots. It struck a chord with me. It reminded me of so many times in my life when I just was grasping at straws wondering how did I get here? Am I on the right path?

Wanting to be alone sometimes, and yet not wanting to truly be alone.

Fearful of forgetting… past mistakes, regrets, the highs and lows of my life.

I have always been a reflective person. My memories comfort me when I am sad, they reassure me when I am scared. I read once that when a person experiences deja-vu, it is the subconscious letting you know that you are on the right path. True? ….who knows. I do believe that we all have somewhat of a path to take through life, and how we get to where we’re going is on us.

“The easy way….or the hard way,” as my Dad would say.

Sometimes memories bring regrets… the road not taken, the missed opportunity, the insecurity of being.

My Grandmother died four years ago, and it is was horrifically sad for my family. One of the last peaceful memories I have of her in those final weeks is giving her a manicure in the hospital. As I was filing her nails, she looked down and said, “Our hands look the same, don’t they?” Odd thing was I thought the same exact thing at the same time as she did. I continued filing her nails, holding back tears. Maybe I remembered that moment because it was the first time I acknowledged there was little time left with her.

There are so many ways I am exactly like my Grandmother… green eyes, hands, and all. I try to remember her voice, and I can hear the way she would say, “Hi, Shelli” on the phone, or when she enjoyed something she was eating, she would say “mmm…delicious!” in a way only I can hear in my head now.

I so don’t want to forget that, and I remind myself to think about it just to remember.

So crazy.

Often, at night when all is quiet and David is just about to drift off to sleep, we sit in the recliner together, quietly or with the sound of the television. He snuggles in my arm and I look down at his eyes.

I am instantly propelled back to the day he was born. It reminds me of the first time I saw him (after the morphine wore off, lol)… Nurse rolling the bassinet into the hospital room… looking over from my bed and seeing his face. He is REALLY, REALLY mine, isn’t he?

Yes, I remember…. like it was yesterday.

He loves to hold his hand up to mine, and talk about how his hands will be bigger than mine “someday, Mommy, when I am a big kid”… and how soft and pretty my hands are. I always say to him… “I got my hands from Great Grandma”.

Sad to say, he never met Great Grandma, I know she would have loved to meet him.

But in that moment as I remember… it seems all three of us do too.