Memories: Keys to pain time has locked away.

My grandmother was telling me a memory she recounted to one of my aunts. The memory was of the time my cousins and I went into the projects without her permission [I remember the fear of disobedience] when we came back she was waiting with a switch. I was the first to get it because I decided to go a head to get it over with. And she remembered that. Why?

I had forgotten 'til then that our lives paralleled. But I'll never forget that she is my home. I live inside of her and I fear her death because then I will be homeless. I will be unloved. No one's love matters more to me than her's. Not even my mother's.

My grandmother admired me for taking my beating first. My cousin's on the other hand resisted what was rightfully their's. She remembered that particular moment to allude to the state of our lives now. I am in school while my cousins are having children and are running wild around town. I cannot explain it, but I understand what she was saying. I'm just surprised that she remembered. What else does she remember? I called her a bitch once, does she remember that. She said that she would remember that forever because it hurt her to her heart. Does she remember when I was little and asked her to come back from heaven and tell me what it was like? Does she remember how I use to take out all of my hurt and anger on her? I want to ask her all of these things but I am afraid of the pain that memories hold, that's why I have forgotten so much of what I use to be. It just hurts. Memories are keys to pain time has locked away. I never though of it that way, but it's true. Even now I fight to keep it down because I am remembering.