She slept through her Life

She could clearly in vivid detail remember the day she meet him. She could describe exactly how he looked and what he said. She remembered the dress she was wearing; it was the green merino wool that brought out the red in her hair. He had been so very handsome with his dark hair, blue eyes and Irish brogue. He was from Detroit come to Chicago to work in the slaughter houses. She was working the reception desk when he checked into the hotel. Her Hotel, owned with her three sisters and brother. They had worked so hard to achieve this and she was very proud of it. But in that moment she first saw him she knew she would give it all up to have him. When they married she was happy. Happy to move to Detroit, happy to leave behind the hotel, Chicago and her family. It was only later she would regret it. After she no longer loved him, after two children, after his drinking destroyed him, after she could no longer remember why she had ever loved him. It was funny ,really, how she remembered the minutest detail about the day they meet but could remember nothing after, not the birth of their children, not the anger, not the violence, not even the day the police knocked on their door to tell her he was dead. She buried him in a cemetery in Detroit, took her children and went home. Could she have guessed that without her memories he would be lost? Lost to the children he had loved in his own way, lost to the grand children that would follow, lost to the great grandson who drove by the cemetery where he was buried every day on his way to work, never knowing that in that graveyard was a piece of him.

A dark haired blue eyed Irishman hangs on my wall. He is handsome. With him is a lovely red haired woman who, looks at him with love. They must have been very happy.