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A Member Of The Club

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 9, 2008

It's a ritual. Every day I skim the obituaries, reading most, especially the memorials. Some I see every year, with the face of the loved one frozen in time. The family's sentiments touch my heart. This expensive little piece of black and white real estate is one more way of holding onto a face and voice that will never mature beyond that horrible day when that loved one slipped out of his or her immortal body and infused his or her soul and spirit into the very air the family breathes, into the tears that still pour from their eyes at a chance memory.

These loved ones are not only remembered by their family once or twice a year, on those two anniversaries, those of life and death. They are remembered by us, who read the words the family carefully pores over, wanting something fitting, something dear, wanting to bring life to that one whose physicality no longer walks this earth. I know that because I too spend hours choosing words and a picture for a memorial to a son gone way to early. The words have to be perfect.

So every year I tweak and pare down words, I choose a picture and I hope that during that one day of the year, my son's memory is still alive, not only to us, but to the other people, who like me, are bound together by yearly memorials to individuals we never knew. We are like a small club, one we didn't chose to join. It is comforting to know that I am not the only one.

CAROL BUCKINGHAM

Tampa

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