Fane Boxes

I have a pretty good memory.  My best friend in college always referred to it as a steel trap.  She'd rely on it to recall miscellaneous factoids of randomness.  She still does every once in awhile.  There's a mass of data kept within the figurative walls of my mind.  Most of it is in what I'd call a free float.  I have access to it pretty much whenever I want.  For some of it I need a refresher, a trigger to bring it up.  Other info will escape me when I'm looking for it only to pop up randomly at a later time.  I call that my mom brain. 

There are other memories that I keep in special boxes.  I call them my Fane boxes.  Most of my Fane memories are in free float.  I'm able to think of him and smile.  I'm able to speak of him without being brought to tears.  I'm able to function so that only a few are wise to the underlying pain that's been numbed to a dull ache over the years. But there are other memories that are just too much to bring up on a daily basis.  These are the ones that if allowed to fester will really bring me to my knees.  So I tuck them in a Fane box for safe keeping.  And I'll open one when I'm ready for a good cry.  The kind of cry that's so hard the sobs make me gag.  Those cries are oddly therapeutic, you know. 

Now that he's been gone for longer than we had him I sometimes catch myself half wondering if it was all a dream.  When I've gotten so used to the craziness and busyness of life without him he seems lightyears away.  Those are the times I open a Fane box.  The times I just need to feel a semblance of closeness to him.  The times I need to be reassured that he was real.  I pick a Fane box and let the floodgates open.   I say his name over and over again because it hits me just how much I've missed hearing it.  I speak to him.  I read to him.  I beg him to come back, as if he would even if he had the choice to.  Then there's no question that he was indeed real.  And I know that even if the rest of the world forgets, a mother never could even if she wanted to.   He was here and he was beautiful and he was mine.