Fragmented

 A while ago I was walking in the cemetery checking on Grandmas grave. I noticed a cross with a photo embedded in it.
The cross is white and stands about a foot and a half tall. There is a scroll that wraps around the base to the top with “In Loving Memory of Penny Wager” cut into the stone.
I looked at her face and “I remembered her!”
For me that’s an accomplishment as I have trouble remembering my own family’s names at times and people, I went to school with are usually a total blank.
I remembered the Maricle family. I remembered Dawn and Julie.
Dawn was in kindergarten with me. I think Julie was in head start.
I remembered my cousin and brother were visiting the Maricle family. We “Kids” were not allowed to go upstairs because the older kids were doing grownup stuff. So, Dawn, Julie, and I were playing in the living room and kitchen. We grew hungry and wanted one of the “big” kids to make us some toast.
I don’t remember whether they did or not.
A memory full of holes is annoying.
I do remember Dawn and me playing with matches. The big kids were coming downstairs and we quickly hid them under the seat cushion of the couch.
Awhile later we left and walked downtown to Uncle John’s.
This is the memory fragment that returned to me.
Now those of you who knew the Miracle’s know that they died in a house fire. You can probably see where this is going. With my memory messed up like it is, I had doubts as to whether I had a part in their tragic death, or not.
For week’s it consumed my thoughts. Was I responsible? The people who were with me, I couldn’t trust for an honest answer. They would probably see my questions as an opening to hurt me. They had in the past, and I don’t like repeating mistakes.
So, I suffered in silence waiting for a good time to ask my father and Mother about it; Worried about the answer I may receive.
First, I asked my dad about the fire:
“It was a horrible thing the house didn’t have a second way out because it was boarded up. The thing was built 100 years ago and the curtains were just paper! Your uncle John used to visit them when he was a kid!”
That was about all I could get from my father.
My mother however remembered a lot more:
“The children were upstairs sleeping. Downstairs, the adults were having a birthday party. A cigarette had fallen under the couch and caught the paper curtains on fire. The house went up so fast that Georgia, her daughters; Joanne, Dawn, Julie, and Penny Wager couldn’t escape. Or Georgia may have gone back inside for the children, she couldn’t say.”
This happened at night several days after I had visited.
I was relieved, but still sad. When I regain a memory, it is like I relive that memory or fragment.
I remember Dawn and I are friends and I thought she was really pretty.
I have their obituary in one of my memory books. They look just as I remember them. Except Julie, she was smiling the last time I saw her.
Across the page is placed this prayer:
“In Memoriam”
“May their souls rest in peace…and may light perpetual shine upon them”
Amen.