Hey. Did you know the Earth is round?
And one plus one is two. And B comes after A. And we breathe oxygen. And we have fifty states.
It's easy to look past the facts we learn at a young age. You know, the stuff you pick up when you are in grade school and will never forget. Cursive handwriting and how to multiply and the first president of the United States. It's these things that we know that we totally take for granted because they are just so obvious.
It's the taking for granted thing that we also learn at a young age. If we're lucky we are given things easily. Our parents or family love us and give us what we need and even what we want. Christmas is never a problem and our birthdays will always be a glowy memory in the back of our heads. We never thought where everything that we've experienced or been given to us came from. We just liked that it was there.
We do this with people, too.
Every year, since I could remember, we've gone to dinner as a huge family to celebrate my grandma's birthday. It was usually at places where you have cloth napkins and silverware on both sides of the plate. We'd sit at a long table and yell conversations at all directions laughing and ordering more drinks and sharing off each other plates(uh, yeah, even at fancy silverware establishments!).
But it's sort of different now that, you know, my grandma is no longer around.
It's been a fact that she's been gone for almost three years and with her birthday this weekend I can't stop thinking about how that fact never quite sinks in. It's there. It's obvious. But it's still hard to let it sink in.
But worse, I take for granted the memories I have of her. Some people never have the closeness with relatives or a special person that I did with my Grandma. The stories I could tell you about that woman would blow your freak'n mind. You've probably heard stories already.
But like the facts we've learned years ago-- the Earth is round or one plus one is two-- I don't think the memories we have of people we really have loved that leave our lives will ever go away. We're lucky that way... having places in our minds where that stays like a wine stain that sets in a white shirt.
We shouldn't take that for granted. Not the wine stain. The memories.