Random Reminders


 A year ago today, in 2022, I got this in the mail.  It actually came to what was my mother's address up the road from us where I cared for her until her passing in December 2021.  This was a jury duty questionnaire thingy, to fill out so the courts can have it on file to call you for jury duty in the coming year.  It actually made me laugh; she had been deceased for almost a year and, had she been living, she would have been 93 years old and in the last stages of dementia.  Had she been alive and in her right mind she would have had a great laugh over the idea of her serving on a jury at that age and in that condition. 

I posted this picture on my Facebook timeline asking for people's opinions about why in the world the court system would send out a jury duty letter to a 93 year old who'd been dead almost a year.  Of course I got varying responses.  I believe in most states and counties there are cut off ages and you can fill out paperwork at the dr office, or somewhere,

 that they will send in to the local court system to excuse you from jury duty.  

However, one response was from a lady I used to work with, Robbie.  She said, "Sorry you got this.  I hate the out of the blue reminders."  

Reading this comment from this post I made a year ago made me pause.  The post itself made me laugh, at the ridiculousness of it, and at the thought of my mom getting ready for jury duty at age 93 and with advanced dementia.  But not many months after she made the above comment, Robbie herself passed away.  I believe she'd had breast cancer.

In reading her comment and reflecting on it I wondered; do random reminders make me sad?  Are random "out of the blue" reminders of someone who has passed unwelcome?  Perhaps to some people they are; perhaps they bring back negative memories, or overwhelming sadness.  Did reading Robbie's comment make me sad?  In a way it did.  She was only a couple/three years older than I am.  It is so tragic how cancer is cutting short the lives of so many wonderful people. But the random reminder also took me back to good memories of her, of working with her, laughing and griping together.  We weren't super close, we were co-workers who interacted every day, but I would still count her as a friend. I remember Robbie took me out to a farewell lunch right before I left Portland to come here to Missouri.  I remember that precious time with her and I treasure that memory.  

So, to answer my own question; no.  I don't think I hate random reminders of people who are gone.  Sometimes they come at inconvenient times or places, but they bring back memories.  If they are good memories I relive them, savor them.  If they are bad I try to think of some good that I gleaned from that past time in my life, and then let them go.  

Rest in peace, Robbie.  I will always welcome memories of her, and I am glad she used to comment on my Facebook posts.

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