On Remembering

I remember her smile as she watched the hot air balloons rise above Stockholm at dusk.  I remember her giddy joy at ordering in a hash bar in Amsterdam. I remember how funny her silly denim overalls looked while standing in the middle of Vatican City. I remember her wiping away my tears upon hearing the boys’ choir in St. Peter’s Basilica. I remember the feel of her hand as she urged me into the Aiguille du Midi gondola to experience the high Alps in France. I remember her shaking me awake as our train boarded a boat on the coast of Denmark. I remember her embarrassment as we disrobed on a small beach outside of Ibiza. I remember her filling in the silences when words escaped me at the intensity of friendships found in Budapest. I remember her raucous laughter as I made my whole fish talk like a puppet in Piles. I remember our drunken flirtation with Italian men over a few bottles of wine in Pisa and how the tower didn’t quite seem to lean after that. I remember her winking at me when a man in Rome said I had the figure and grace of a ballerina. I remember her ease at meeting strangers at a beer garden in Munich and her love of Fifi the bulldog who didn’t speak English. I remember hugging her and feeling her shoulders shake at the airport in London. I remember our final good-bye, 10 years after that intense and long hug in London. Mostly now I remember how those memories and the regrets of her fill my heart with a certain kind of heaviness that these words cannot convey.