Ritika Jyala. Excerpts from « The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire »
He asked me when I fell in love with him and I knew it sounded dramatic to say the moment I saw him, so I told him this story of my grandma who had Alzheimer’s.
She had forgotten her name and the words for fruit and food. She had forgoten her address and how to use the washroom, all her life lost to the disease. The only thing she remembered was her son’s name and when that began to fade, the one thing she always remembered was that she loved him, even in illness, even in insanity.
She saw this 6 foot 2 man with a scrubby beard and she didn’t know him but she said she trusted him, she asked him to hold her hand when she died. When does memory end and love begin? All I know is : she loved him before she remembered him.
There’ll be a moment when you realise you’re 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn’t be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters.
The fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. Scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don’t talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom’s burnt pie will become the best food you ever had.
And I know on some days you won’t be able to show anything of those 10 years but I hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. I hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37.
Updated/maj. 09-04-2022
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