“Then one morning she’d begun to
feel her sorrow easing, like something jagged that had cut into her so long it
had finally dulled its edges, worn itself down. That same day Rachel couldn’t
remember which side her father had parted his hair on, and she’d realized again
what she’d learned at five when her mother left – that what made losing someone
you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting the small
things first, the smell of the soap her mother had bathed with, the color of
the dress she’d worn to church, then after a while the sound of her mother’s
voice, the color of her hair. It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and
everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could
finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even
want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return
and remind you the grief that was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in
a tree’s heartwood.”
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