Time in a Bottle

I am not big on special recognition days. Birthdays, Anniversaries, Holidays. I think it is connected to my inability to remember names, dates, phone numbers. Names are foreign to me. I can be introduced to a person and before I can say how glad I am to meet them, their name has disappeared in my memories. Lost to the fog which shrouds the part of my brain which stores this information. Phone number? You have got to be kidding me. If I am having to type a phone number form one screen to the other, i have to concentrate on the first 6 numbers, check the screen again for the last four numbers then go back a recheck at least once and sometimes twice. Yet I have remembered my grandparents number since I was 6. Birthdays? If your birthday does not coincide with some trivial fact that is stuck in my brain, I am sorry. Mobley’s birthday happens to be the day which anyone with an income from doing an honest days work in this country knows the day they have to report their earnings. It is now marked with a larger personal event, the fiery end of P & N Engraving. Happy Birthday Mobley.

Meredith used to chide and make fun of my inability to remember dates. Every December when the calendar for the next year was out, she would make a big show of transferring all the names from the old to the new. One August morning, after making coffee, she returned to the bedroom, woke me up and sat on the edge of the bed. In that sweet alto voice she said, “Happy Birthday” as she gave me a hug and handed me a birthday card. I opened it and read it with no comment. As she was getting a little pouty look on her face, I reached under my pillow and handed her an anniversary card, thanking her for being ahead of the game, for my birthday was to arrive in 6 days. Oh how sweet the feeling is of complete release from the punishment of not remembering when her mother’s twice removed cousin’s wedding anniversary was to occur.

All this to say, there is one anniversary which looms on the horizon which is very heavy on my heart. The first four times this date passed. I was too busy running, hiding, recovering and doing everything in my power to ignore. But this year, it is heavy on my soul. Time might be the healer of all wounds, but it heals on it’s own schedule.

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I’d like to do
Is to save every day ’til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I’d save every day like a treasure, and then
Again, I would spend them with you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them

I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go through time with

If I had a box just for wishes
And dreams that had never come true
The box would be empty
Except for the memory of how they were answered by you

But there never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do once you find them

I’ve looked around enough to know
That you’re the one I want to go through time with

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