Core Memories

11-11-15 was the date. The exact time, I don’t recall—morning. The moment lives with me to this day. It changed my life, his life, our lives, their lives. The moment rippled outward like a shockwave in the waters of our existence.

We met only a few times. We shared just one dinner, but I knew from the way he acted around you, the way he smiled at you, the way his eyes gleamed with focus—you were special to him.

Your mother thanked me the night before. I had watched her and your father through the huge glass wall, the “private” room. It didn’t seem very private. They sat together closely, leaning towards the doctor in almost a huddle - their sullen faces set in shock. Shortly afterward, she approached me to thank me for coming to the hospital. I remember how she spoke in the past tense, thanking me for giving birth to my son, the boy who had shown you so much love—your first love. She was grateful that her daughter had experienced that kind of love in her life. Processing her words at the moment was too much for me. She already knew what I would come to learn the next morning.

That morning replays in my head more often than I ever imagined it could—more than any other event in my life. One of the first things I learned about you was your favorite movie was Inside Out—so I watched it. I cried thinking of you. The concept of core memories in the movie stuck with me. THAT moment—the one where we stood together at the foot of your bed, holding each other's hand, watching as they let you go—that moment is now a core memory for me. I don’t know why the universe wanted him there, but I am thankful I could stand beside him as they took you off life support, thankful I could hold him and wrap him in my arms as cried out for you. It will never leave me. It’s burned into my soul—unshakable, immovable, forever part of me.

Your heart stopped within two minutes of being withdrawn from the ventilator. A bacterial and viral ear infection had led to sepsis, and you died in front of our eyes. You'd only been sick for 11 days. I remember kissing your forehead and whispering to your spirit to fly. The ICU was no place for you.

I learned so much more about you after you were gone than I ever had the chance to while you were alive. Stories from those who loved you, glimpses of your life before that morning, all came together to form a picture I never fully knew. I got my first glances through your college friends, devastated by your death, as they joined him at the school’s impromptu memorial a couple of days later, still in shock at the reality of your now eternal absence.

As I helped clear out your apartment, sorting through the books and life you left behind, I realized how much you must have loved patterns and meaning in numbers. You had a love for patterns, for finding meaning where others saw randomness.

Not that anything is pleasing about the date of one’s death. But there is beauty in numbers. I imagine your date would have pleased you –or not disappointed you—had you been alive to appreciate the symmetry of its palindromic nature. It’s seen as a ‘master number’ eleven, and when it repeats, so does its vibrations. That’s when it struck me—11-11 would have been a date that sparked your curiosity and fascination. An angel number. A sequence is often interpreted as a divine message from the universe. A signal to pay attention to your thoughts, focus on positive manifestation and align with your true self. That, too, would have excited you, I think. 

No one thought you would be the angel to take flight that morning.

The country grieves for its veterans on that same day. And as we left the hospital, stunned and in shock, we didn't bother to walk around the puddles on the asphalt as we returned to our car. He directed me to drive to the special spot in the woods near the gorge. It was your special wooded getaway near school where you would commune with nature, complete with a small quiet waterfall. It hurt him too much to be inside—yet outside, where you shared the memories, pelted him like the jagged rocks we stared at. Brown leaves lay about the woods, some scattered in the golden water—Golden rays breaking through as if just for us. We stared out into the water together. Our tears streamed, but we were paralyzed by witnessing your death.

In the days and weeks that followed, each picture became more important to preserve since there would be no more—forever frozen in time. He was passionate about taking pictures of you—with the sunflower, with the butterfly that stayed on your nose at the party that night. Those images remain fragments of a life that once was, tangible memories to be held onto. Your mother showed him photos of you as a baby, a toddler, the little girl—her only daughter, his middle girl between her two protective brothers.

Terrified to let go of the texts between you, a transcript of your love, he feared that deleting them would mean losing another piece of you. We saved them—they exist on a file somewhere in the cloud—a digital echo of a love that once was. This digital footprint left behind is something that can come with a heavyweight—a bittersweet reminder of what remains and what is lost.

Grief is a strange, relentless part of life—something no one can escape. We were rocked off our axis that day, and because of it, I have changed my life tremendously. I live a simpler life in the mountains, away from the chaos I once knew. I started meditating, though not consistently until four years later when my mother died. Our priorities shifted. Tomorrow is never promised—something I had certainly taken for granted before that day.

Sometimes, when I’m walking, a butterfly will pass by, and I freeze. We released hundreds at your celebration of life ceremony a year later. It always stops me in my tracks, a quiet reminder of you. Mother’s Day, I cry thinking about your mom, about the weight of her loss. Even writing this tears my eyes, making it hard to continue.

I wish we had more time, more memories. But you are part of our lives, forever woven into the fabric of our story. You are loved. You are remembered. And every time I see 11:11, I think of you.

Author’s Note: This is the first time I have put words to this experience other than when journaling about it when it happened. I dedicate this to Shannon Nicole, whose memory shapes our lives in ways words can never fully capture.