Remembering Still
Memories are funny.
They don’t knock before entering.
They don’t ask if you’re ready.
They just come
pouring down like rain,
sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce,
drenching you in the moments you thought you had packed away.
I could be doing something ordinary
washing plates, arranging my books,
even laughing with friends
and suddenly, a picture flashes in my mind.
You.
Sitting with that calm smile,
that voice that carried both warmth and discipline,
that presence I thought would never leave me.
Sometimes the memories make me laugh,
like remembering the jokes you told,
or the sound of your laughter,
It’s so full, so heavy, so alive.
But then reality whispers,
and the truth strikes harder than silence:
I will never hear that laughter again.
Get Bashir Sultanat Erinlola’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
And other times
The memories are heavy.
They arrive like dark clouds,
and before I know it, my cheeks are wet.
I don’t even remember when the tears began.
It’s just that grief never asks for permission.
It bends my knees,
breaks my chest,
and drags me into that space between love and loss.
The hardest part of memory is this:
you can’t touch it.
You can’t step back into it.
You can only watch it replay in your mind,
over and over again,
like a film you didn’t ask to see,
with an ending you can’t rewrite.
Sometimes I wish I could forget,
just for a moment,
so the weight could lift.
But then I remember
forgetting would mean losing you twice.
So I keep the memories,
fold them gently into the corners of my heart.
I let them sting,
I let them heal,
I let them remind me that love is not measured by years,
but by moments that live beyond time.
Maybe one day,
the memories will hurt less.
Maybe they’ll become softer,
But until then,
I will let them live in me
because they are all I have left,
and because they remind me that I was loved,
and I loved in return.
