Dear June

Your body never forgets suffering

June is encased in the sadness of my memory. Even when I forget the calendar, my body remembers the worst sorrow of my life. Maybe it’s the start of the heat, or the movement I make from it to the quiet cool of air conditioning. This year my little dog is making a slow transition of her own to the demise of cancer and displaced ligaments. I carry her to therapeutic appointments, up and down stairs. Her added weight as I climb is good for my bones. I was going to buy weights, but I will carry her as long as I can instead.

From post-June memories where the struggle endured

I watch as Josie transforms from outrage over her physical demise to a silent acceptance of this new life, still grateful for good days and happy moments. We want to keep going, even while adjusting to significant losses. It’s a reminder that we are not our minds nor our bodies. Not entirely. There is some soul, or spirit, or nameless part of us that just calmly observes all the chaos that is human, or animal, life. Maybe it knows there is never truly an end.

This June is also filled with fresh changes. A new kitchen is emerging. My calendar is filled with the selection of cabinets and flooring and countertops. But the persistence of a once very bad month does not forget. Maybe it’s my body’s way of attempting a perverse protection. Maybe it forces me to remember while I distract myself with a new and good life, as though I’m able to watch against it somehow. But really all it does is remind me of a capacity for human emotion so strong it feels almost rich despite its brutality. At least that’s how the memory of it has become.

This June as I remember the birthday of my beloved father, now gone over 30 years, I think about how loving someone keeps you remembering the gift of a relationship. Being remembered after your death is no offering to dead mortals. The gift of remembrance is to those still living, always able to preserve the connection that once itself was alive. There is no monument or symbol necessary, nor promise of devotion. It is simply a comfort that, once enjoyed, is never abandoned.

Your body remembers things you’ve long forgotten. A blue day may not be as mysterious as it seems once you trace its time in history. The things our bodies continue to do for us is remarkable. They just keep going until they stop. Aging can help you to appreciate even the sad days because they are ties to a history long gone, and a nudge that reminds you to honor your continued presence here among us all.

I can feel you, June. I’m still learning, but you teach me every year that even the most painful of life’s difficulties can dull just enough to accompany the new joys life keeps revealing. I’m with you, right to the end. Thanks for reading.