The Things You Remember

It's funny, the things you remember when you look back in time. Some of the biggest events in our lives end up being so inconsequential they remain barely a blip on the radar. When someone says "Remember when....?", you have to think for a moment, "Was I really there?"

Yet the sights, sounds, smells and feelings of other events stay burned in our memories as if they occurred just yesterday.

I don't remember everything that happened during August 1980, but I remember a lot. There weren't any earth-shattering events or major happenings, such as holidays, birthdays or surprises, that would cause that time period to be memorialized in the recesses of my mind. It was the little things, the things that go unnoticed by others, that loomed large in my memory for years to come.

 I remember the feeling of the cobblestone beneath my feet when Mario and I walked across the courtyard at Eringerfeld. I remember the softness and smell of his shirt next to my face when he held me close. How do you describe what a person's smell was like? It smelled like him. I remember noticing extraordinarily emerald green grass on the soccer field as Mario and I walked past it, toward the hill, and having to wear a sweater in August because the air was cooler then back home in the United States.

I remember sitting at one of the long, dark wooden tables in the dining hall, surrounded by the smells of fresh breads and meat. I can still hear the sounds of everyone speaking at once, mostly in German, once in awhile in English, mingled with the sounds of silverware clanking against plates and the periodic silence that punctuated the noise when everyone chewed simultaneously.

Even though Mario and I were limited in what we could say to one another, I remember an abundance of smiles and laughter, losing ourselves in each other's eyes, feeling the electricity of his presence from across the room and the unspoken communication between us that far exceeded the kind of communication most couples ever know.

Mario & Mary, August 1980

From the moment we acknowledged our feelings for one another until that miserable day of departure, we fell in step with one another as if we had always been together and would never have to consider a day apart.

Have you ever been with someone with whom you felt like you were home? Not because of a specific place, a certain house or a state or country. Because the surroundings become irrelevant when you look into someone's eyes, breathe a sigh of contentment and relief and think to yourself, "I'm finally home".

It wasn't on the campus of an international boarding school in Germany that I found my home. It wasn't on a cobblestone path, in the middle of a courtyard adjacent to an old castle. Nor was it on a goose poop-covered hill. I found my home in the eyes, smile and love of a German boy during the warm summer month of August of 1980.