from "The Flower Girls That We Were"

And the snapshots, of course.

The times that I looked at the ten or so pictures which my mom put in an album, my mind registered a blank, and I drew up more questions than answers: Why was I frowning all the time? Were the flowers in my basket real or not? How did I feel, sitting there on the pew with the other white-clad flower girls? Why did I look so anxious, while they seemed so much at ease?

Looking at the photos felt a little strange, as I did not have any actual memory of them ever happening. I did not recall how it was to be wearing the white, boat-necked, ankle-length dress, bare except for a wide orange sash tied around its waist; or how the headpiece made of orange flowers felt on my head.

It was my aunt's wedding, but I did not remember being aware of that, or of anything at all. The orange and white-colored flowers arranged along the pews did not look familiar. I did not remember seeing my Auntie Nene so young, so vibrant in her white gown; looking dazed with happiness, sitting there across the altar with her equally young groom, an ineffable smile spilling from her lips. Neither did I recall my uncle to be half as handsome as he was in his medal-festooned, white military suit. Did they, on the other hand, remember the whole thing—from beginning to end—it being their wedding and all?

I didn’t know.


Running my eyes over the photos, I remembered the things my parents had told me about each frame; and, in time, I began to gather a sense of familiarity, somehow, of the captured portraits. Still, it was different from having an actual memory to anchor the familiarity on. Somewhere between the pictures and my eyes, there always seemed to be a hollow that would have only been filled by memory itself. I looked at each snapshot with a perceptible lack of emotional response, except for something akin to regret—regret that I would never be able to say the words, “I remember.”

-March, 2004, CW 141/ Creative Nonfiction 2-