Memories Soon to Be Forgotten
On the 21st of December, as I rushed out the front doors of my now deserted dormitory, army duffle of laundry slung over my shoulders, the cold Milwaukee slush sloshing beneath my boots, into my family's old Saturn Vue to catch a ride home for Christmas Break, the last thing on my mind was the possibility that I might lose a loved one. Less than 24 hours later, Ernie Varga went into cardiac arrest for the final time as I drove that same car at unsafe speeds towards Rockford in an attempt to see him before his passing. I didn't make it. The next few days register in my memory like some kind of stereo cassette tape where periodically the right or left channel simply cuts out. I can remember bursts of memory in fine clear detail, the tick of the clock on Ehorn-Adams funeral home wall, the way the mortician's hands moved over the paperwork, the colors of every casket along that wall and their prices. There are other moments in which I hardly remember any sensory input, just emotion, a sort of unstable feeling, as though I'd been standing on a floor which simply ceased to exist, only to reveal another floor an inch or so below it.