Three Years On: Lest We Forget, Lest We Remember

Recently, I have been thinking hard about Paul’s car – specifically, though it is still difficult even now to use any version of this phrase, the last car Paul owned.

Paul drove several different cars during the time I knew him. When we met in 1989, he didn’t have a car: for which I, and hopefully he, was grateful, because we chanced upon each other while he was walking home from a post-work aerobic class, from Froggy Bottom to Adams Morgan via Dupont Circle. A few years later, he bought a car (second hand, if memory serves), which he named Pepe. There is a photo of me standing in front of Pepe along Skyline Drive, which we once drove to. Paul was worried that Pepe, who was spunky but pretty well-used, would strand us, but he didn’t. 

Next was the car I remember even more, a blue-grey Mazda 3 hatchback. I want to say that we named her Abby (as in “Abbey Road”). Or maybe Abby was the GPS – Paul had never had a car with a GPS before, so the latter also deserved a name – while the car had a related punny name, Penny (Lane), but I think my first instinct is right. Abby was cute, dependable, and long-serving. As the years went by, the back of Abby was populated with bumper stickers: first, the stickers went directly on Abby, and then, as bumper sticker technology improved, the stickers went onto magnets that then got stuck onto Abby. Paul and his bumper stickers. “Not All Who Wander Are Lost.” A series of “Yay!” stickers (Yay! Westies! Yay! Sloths! Yay! Nurses!). “Coexist.” More and more strings of beads and pendants – from various religions, thus serving to illustrate “Coexist” – were hung from Abby’s rear-view mirror. A couple of wooden Buddha figurines, which I used to think would keep Paul safe – in the car at least – sat on the dashboard. (Many of these things, plus a dog leash we always kept in the car, we were able to salvage.) 

Paul retired Abby probably four, five years ago. His mechanic, who in turn has retired, bought Abby off of Paul, worked on her, and gifted it to his child; this made Paul happy. Meanwhile, Paul bought a new car. It is this one that I’ve been thinking about a lot. Not because there is anything that special about it. In fact, when I say I’ve been thinking hard about this last car, it is because I struggle to remember much about it. For one thing, though I have been trying and trying, I cannot even be sure what color the last car was.

There are plenty of rational reasons why I don’t remember much of this last car. There are few memories because there are few memories. I don’t think Paul and I took any especially significant trips in it; its bumper stickers were ported over from Abby; and indeed, the COVID years meant that I knew this last car only on two or three trips to DC. Still, it upsets me that I can’t recall much about this car.

It has been three long years since Paul left, and memories are beginning to fade. I am obviously not the only, the wisest, or the most eloquent person to remark on the paradoxical nature of memories, and thus of remembering and forgetting, in grief. I have so many happy, funny memories of the 32 years that Paul and I had together, but still so many painful ones – painful not because of their content, but because they are now only memories. It is hard to think about some things because I miss them so, and it’s sometimes hard to think of Paul because I miss him so. Not only are memories paradoxical, but so is the remembering and forgetting of these already fraught memories. The part that needs less saying is how desperately I want and need to retain every single thing. But it can almost feel like a relief when memories get duller, less liable to pierce. Yet, when the dulling seeps in and there is a moment of relief, it is only followed by terror and guilt.

As memories go, the color and other details of Paul’s last car are not one of the more important ones. No doubt I can remind myself that as long as I remember the important stuff, all is fine. And if I need to make an effort to be even more self-comforting, I can tell myself that the stuff I can still remember are by definition the important stuff, while all that falls away falls away because they are unimportant. (Although, as the son of, first one, and now two people with dementia, I imagine that the neurology of my brain eventually may not be able to guarantee even the preceding sentence.)  

But, as with many matters related to Paul’s passing, to know and to feel are two different things. I do wish I can remember the unimportant color of the car, and to remember what I may even have forgotten that I’ve forgotten. And I find myself wishing for new memories — if not with Paul, then of him. Perhaps others have had experiences with Paul that I was not part of, or aware of. If you had a meal with Paul, if he told you a joke that I have never heard: I find myself wanting to dig and dig to find these new-to-me memories, whereupon I will have no compunction about stealing your memories to claim as my own. Because, three years on, it still feels like an impoverished world without new memories of Paul, without being able to hold on to every single memory of Paul, without Paul.