Forgotten Memories

We went to a football match today, the lil town's football team played the one from 20 years ago. Before the second half, my sister and I moved away from the crowd and over to the other side of the field.

After a little while a man walks up to us. He says hi to me, asks how I am and what I'm doing these days. Nothing unusual there... except I'm not sure who this man is. He seems to know me and after a couple minutes I recognized him as our science teacher from my first year in high school. He killed some rabbits so we could look at their hearts and lungs.

But that was eight years ago. I was one of over a hundred kids he taught each year. If he remembers every single kid I'm seriously impressed. Especially if he remembered me - even I wouldn't have remembered me back then. I was easy to miss. Easy to ignore. But for some reason he still remembered me.


I know I remember people who never knew who I was, but over the years I've realized there are people out there who for one reason or another seem to remember me too. I wonder... who are all those people I've forgotten through the years? Who lives on in my memories, while I have vanished from theirs? And whose memories am I still a part of?


“We do not remember days, we remember moments.
The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.”

Cesare Pavese