There are places in our minds we return to time and time again, destinations that offer comfort and the warm buzz of nostalgia that comes with a beautiful memory. 

One of my favourite destinations harks back to an ordinary Saturday afternoon 14 years ago, in Richmond, B.C. I was running errands at the strip mall near my home when I saw my parents ahead of me, walking hand in hand in the dappled sunlight. It was a coincidence we were there at the same time, and they were talking quietly to each other as I walked a few feet behind them, enjoying the privilege of watching them without them knowing I was there. 

Two individuals in their mid-50s, they looked so happy together with their hands clasped and their heads bowed close in confidential conversation. I can still see the swish of Mom’s skirt and the shape of her handbag flung over a shoulder, the crease of Dad’s jacket against his back. She laughed and looked up at him with a look of love and affection I knew well. How often that look was directed at me, too.

Eventually I called out “Hello” and we embraced and spoke of our day. Mom suggested we all sit down for a quick cup of tea at the local coffee shop. I likely deferred, rushing on with my errands so I could get back home in time to breastfeed my son. We parted company and went on with our respective days. But something about that day lingers long in my mind. The way the sunlight shone down on her hair. The delicious feeling of watching two people I loved so dearly and seeing them enjoy each other. The stillness of that afternoon moment is frozen in my mind with more clarity than an expensive camera could ever deliver.

I love returning to that memory, because over the next two years that harmony shattered into a million pieces. Our family faced Mom’s cancer diagnosis and watched dumbfounded as the medical establishment threw their hands up in despair at her illness. We saw her flounder and succumb within a few short months, leaving us to console each other with broken hearts. Gradually we picked up the pieces, as every family confronted with tragedy does. We donated her clothes, dealt with her assets and tried to comfort a father who struggled bitterly against the loneliness of his new reality.

At the time, I thought ours was the only family bearing the weight of such sadness, but in the 14 years since then, I’ve watched my friends lose their parents, one by one, many under similarly painful circumstances. I’ve learned we all have burdens on our shoulders, some more conspicuous than others, and that behind every perfect-looking family is a history that almost certainly contains heartache, sorrow and loss.

Which is why those secret destinations in our memories are so utterly precious, and why I keep returning to mine, a safe place where I can enjoy being frozen in time from the sharp shards of the future, the change that would descend out of nowhere like an unexpected blow to the head.

I still frequent the same strip mall, and though it’s been renovated and updated, the pathway where my parents walked, hand in hand, is still there. As I move from one errand to another, I like to pause and picture them ahead of me, in my mind’s eye. I imagine their footsteps still etched into the concrete, something of that day always present in that particular place. It’s fanciful, I know, the imaginings more of a child than an adult. Still, it’s a deeply comforting memory, one that leaves a tingly warmth in its wake and a reminder that life, though fleeting, can be very, very good.