My first girlfriend passed away 20 years ago. For the longest time, I referred to her death as “turning into butterflies.”
There is no relation to “The Love Eterne” here. On one hand, it was a reference to Remedios the Beauty and One Hundred Years of Solitude was and always will be the book that had the most impacts on who I have become. On the other hand, it was simply hard to acknowledge that she was no longer in this world. Because there was no certainty that there was another world. No longer in this world simply meant no more. And no more was unimaginable.
How could something just stop existing? It was beyond the capability of my 16-year-old mind to understand that concept. Years later, I might have matured or started to act as if I had matured. But the phrase stuck. So into butterflies, she turned. Flied away, she did.
Every year, I was sad. When we started dating, she told me a 15-year old should not drink beer like water. I told her that I could only commit to stop drinking for 5 years. After five years, if we would still be together, we could then renew the promise. I honored my promise to her to not drink beer for exactly five years. Afterwards, I started to drink. A lot more. And at the 8th anniversary, something amazing happened.
I forgot.
There were so many excuses. I made a major change in my life in the same year. I jumped into a new career. I moved back to Vietnam. I was dating guys and girls left and right and up and down.
But ultimately, I forgot. The excuses weren’t good enough. Somehow, I added the date as an annual reminder in my Google Calendar. I didn’t want to forget again. Memories form part of who we are. And I didn’t want to be someone who never had her in my life.
It wasn’t the first time in my calendar though. Before that, it was my best friend. Who I met randomly at an amusement park. I didn’t want to be someone who never met him either. I was also the last person who talked to him alive. I added it to my calendar because for years, I struggled with the thoughts that, had I said anything in any different ways, he would still be alive. I never had my answer and it was unhealthy to have that in my mind all the time. So the Calendar reminder was a healthier way to departmentalize those thoughts into just a few days a year.
I added more and more reminders over the year. I now had “Another friend passed away” which would be on Mar 22nd. I had “Yet another friend passed away” back in Jan. May and December were particularly busy months.
The funniest thing is, I realized that, aside from her and him, the rest was a blur. I can list them down, but I don’t know who died on which date. But it doesn’t matter. Because it’s okay that each is just a collective reminder. Because it’s for me. Not for them.
I didn’t have the reminders to honor them or their death. They are reminders that I am living. That I am also but a collective. Whether I have free wills or not is a conversation for another day (which I don’t have the answer to and could not care less). But the fact that in this universe and timeline, I am what I am because of the chance interactions with them.
And thousands and millions and billions of others who are not them.
One day, maybe the calendar would be so full of death, it would become a death calendar. Maybe, one day, I would randomly but rationally decide that I need to clean it up. Delete everything.
Maybe except for the reminder of her death. Maybe except for his.
Maybe everything.