Remembrance

Prologue

The reflections of an old woman are a trifle in the scheme of things. I’m writing this all down in any case because if I don’t, I will forget. And I don’t want to forget. He came into my life out of the blue and left just as suddenly, or that’s how it feels. Time is a funny thing. When living it, it seems endless, but then you look back and it’s come to a close. Perhaps the most tragic part of time is that people take it for granted. When younger, we always feel invincible and infinite – like we’re going to last forever. We don’t. We grow old and think back on the times we were younger and we wish we could go back. We can’t. Instead, we’re left to ponder our choices and interactions in life without the ability to change or relive them. That is the torture of growing old with nothing to do but live in your mind.

My son placed me in a retirement home after my second stroke, not that I blame him. I remember caring for my mother once she’d grown too old and helpless to do it on her own and it was not something that I would put on anyone else. The staff here is pleasant, even if the smells aren’t and I find I share much common ground with many of the other patients here. None of us like the new technology contraptions much – they are much too complimented for children of the letter. We often have group nights where we sit in the main room and watch “old timey” films, it put it in the terms of the young people who sometimes join us. I couldn’t really call them that, being eighty-seven tended to revoke that right.

My name is Charlene Louise Gallagher. I was born in April of 1928 to Alexandria and Michael Gallagher. I met one of the few people that matters the most to me in September of 1952, at the age of twenty-four.