On a gentle afternoon, my mum and I drove up to Mt Warrenheip to spend some time in the forget-men-nots.
In honour of such a sentimental flower, here are some people I’ve lost, some of them recently and some treasured things I remember about them.
My grandmother Shirley, who used to make us hot apple tea when we were kids. Her house had a very warm and cosy feel to it and in a Ballarat winter where the hem of your trousers if often wet and cold and making you grumpy, warmth matters. She would make it from an apple cordial you can no longer get. She’d take her hand made tea cosy off her kettle and fill it with water. Her voice was always happy and bright, the way people wish for you to feel at Christmas.
My grandfather David who would usually greet me with ‘how you going’, muscles?’
He would come in from the shed smelling like grease and petrol and leather when you called out the back door that the kettle was boiled. He’d sneak apples to the horses and scratch behind their ear. He loved hugs, but his arthritis sometimes made them jerky and clunky. The smell of leather always makes me think of him out the back of his shoe repair store, whistling while he worked.
Corinna, who would take turns with me making each other laugh. At school we would wear our hair in those ponytails where you slick everything back except for two specific pieces of fringe and have a wavy, high ponytail.
Betty, who took me to a gelato store in Malaga to show me how beautiful the ice cream is in Spain and then when the owner was excited by my camera, helped me understand that the woman was asking me to come behind the counter to take pictures. Everything Spanish reminds me of her.
Veronica, who would always be enabled by my delight at her wild stories that she would tell me more and more and I never ever stopped asking what she had done next. I think of her every time someone mentions a fractured eye-socket.
My grandmother Valerie, who I seem to carry with me into every new memory I make. I can imagine what she would say about anything in my life now. Some people just feel as though they are standing by your shoulder, seeing, knowing, chuckling with you. Just out of frame.
Michael. The friend who introduced me to Studio Ghibli. Who helped me remember the names of people and characters when my brain refused.
Maja. And Oliver. Every time I look down at my left arm.
It’s funny now, this far down the list I have realised something beautiful. In this moment, I can’t remember all the beautiful people I still treasure long after they’ve gone, but all it will take is for a simple thing to happen, the light to fall a certain way, the smell of a particular perfume, an old photo tumbling from a book, and there they are, imprinted. For my grandmother Valerie, it is the taste of pea soup. For my grandfather David, is a room without his booming cheerful hello. Some are more obscure. I don’t even know why Corrina comes to mind when I see leopard print. She never wore it. I guess like the flowers, you may not see them all the time. Sometimes months will pass and you may not think of them, and then in one simple moment, they bloom in your heart and it’s like you get to remind the universe you loved them then and you love them now.
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