Jodi Hills

So this is who I am – a writer that paints, a painter that writes…

Tag Archives: never forget


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The resting places. 

An elephant has a very large brain for its size and the ‘temporal lobe’ region responsible for memory is more developed with a greater number of folds – this results in powerful abilities to ‘download’ important survival data, such as who is friend or foe.The ease at which my grandmother could fall asleep in the most random of situations makes me believe she possessed some of these same qualities. I saw her take an Elsie nap at Petermeir’s funeral home. At Jerry’s Jack and Jill. In a chair for sale at the neighbor’s auction. In the back seat of the car while we were being pulled over by the highway patrol. At the kitchen table during a dice game. In the police station in Wisconsin during a snowstorm. In the church basement. In the Herberger’s basement. In her basement, while guests wandered above.

I envied this about her. This trust. This comfort. This certainty of the friendly place. She, having never used a computer, was able to ‘download’ all of this survival data. Knowing where she was safe enough to rest her weary eyes. I write of her again and again, hoping the words bring that same knowledge to all of us. 

I suppose it’s always the matriarchs of the herd. They say that during droughts, these grandma elephants lead family members to watering holes by recalling detailed maps they’ve made spanning hundreds of kilometres. I say it’s even more than that. Grandma Elsie is still leading me. I am a country and a lifetime away, and she guides me to the safe places. The resting places. I, we, live a little easier, because of her.

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September 11th

It fills today’s square on my mother’s calendar — Phyllis Norton’s birthday. Yesterday my mom told me to send her a message on Facebook. I will, I said. Maybe you should do it today, she suggested. I’ll do it tomorrow, I said. Don’t forget, she said. I won’t forget, I promised.

It seems I, we, have made that promise to this day before. September 11th. We all know where we were 21 years ago. How we felt. The fear. The uncertainty. I was going to pick up an order of frames from Metropolitan Picture Framing. I had a big order to fill. The Minneapolis Streets were almost empty. People were paralyzed. The skies were empty overhead. Do I still get my frames? Do I just keep doing what I’m doing? Did any of it matter? We all had the questions. But this was the life I had promised myself. The life of an artist. Painting. Writing. Creating. I had to keep going. We all had to. And we did feel like a “we” then…didn’t we. Together. We banded together. Vowed to ourselves and the world that this would not break us. Not individually. Not as a nation. No, we vowed to be strong.

And I think we were, for a while. Together. We braced hands on each other’s shoulders to lift us off of our knees of prayer. Shook those same hands and vowed to work together. Clapped those hands together in praise and we did survive. Stronger. And then years went by, as they always do, and hands unlocked. Waving goodbye to all those promises we had made, all those promises that said, if you just get us through this, we will be better, we will never forget. And worse yet, some of those waving hands turned into fists. We started to lose our way, and more importantly, our “we.”

I suppose it is human nature to move on. But we promised to never forget. So how do we keep those big promises – the big promises of a nation to do better, live better, be stronger together? As I look at my mother’s calendar, maybe the answer is, we keep all the little promises. All the little promises we’ve been making since we were young. Be a good girl, my mother told me, as I went off to school. I promise. We promised our teachers to follow the golden rule. We promised our friends that we would be forever. Our neighborhoods that we would watch out for each other. We wrote birthdays on calendars. Anniversaries on cards. We promised to be loyal. To be kind. To be there. For each other.

So this is where it begins. Again. Today. We keep those beautiful little promises. We remember. Each other. Happy Birthday, Phyllis Norton.

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