Well Put

From a book I loved until the last few chapters (where somehow it let me down and left me feeling annoyed with the author for not realizing the excellence in writing that he'd so far been displaying), The Rest Is Silence, by Canadian author Scott Fotheringham:

The anniversary of a death is like the point that a snail shell coils around year after year as it grows.  The point becomes more distant, enfolded deeper within layers of living and forgetfulness, but it's always there at the centre of everything.  You spiral through life, coming each year to the date where memory plays out those long distant events, and more than likely you still don't understand.  You continue to digest memory, trying to understand what happened so you can forget it.  At least that's the way it is for me.  (p. 277, Goose Lane Editions, 2012)

If by, "so you can forget it," he means, "so it will stop stopping you in your tracks and you can move on without stumbling over it every year," then that's the way it is for me, too.  I don't expect or want to forget the deaths of those I've loved, but I do get just the tiniest bit frustrated every year when I start feeling "weird" and don't know why and everything becomes extra dramatic and makes me cry and I wonder what's going on until one day I look at the calendar or have to write the date on something and suddenly realize what day it is… 

I've got until October before the next snail shell rolls around.  I like that image of the shell coiling around the date, adding another layer each year so the loss becomes "enfolded deeper within layers of living and forgetfulness," yet is still there at the center.  Yep, that's how it is.  Very well put.