What childhood memories are made of, apparently

How our own memories inform the ones we think we're making now

It was the fried okra that did me in this time. Eating it on the back porch of a barbecue joint in Williamsburg, Virginia, a wave of nostalgia I’d been outrunning all week finally pulled me under. It took me back to the checkered tablecloths of Stroud’s, a family-owned fried chicken restaurant in Kansas,¹ where I’d order a dinner-sized side of fried okra and call it a meal. Where my Papa would say, “Oh, let her have it,” and my mom would concede.

It was the first three-day-weekend vacation of summer with my husband and three children. And I felt an overwhelming need to connect the dots of now to the dots of then, to say over and over again, “This reminds me of something.”

The smoky scent of sun-baked pavement at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg? The feel of cool-metal railings while waiting in ride lines? It transported me to childhood Saturdays at Kansas City’s Worlds of Fun. Frozen custard with the kids made me think of the “quality time” custard we had every day during a weeklong RV trip to Branson with my Granny and Gramps. Handing out dramamine to my kids for car rides and roller coasters — religiously, like my mom did — gave me the sense of coming full-circle on the tilt-a-whirl of motherhood.

And I wonder — am I the only one flashback-ing through family vacations? Is this common? Did leaving my usual orbit create the space to process, however inconveniently, the feelings and memories that have been slowly rising, waiting to come to the surface? Or are memories just the fabric of the real world, waiting for us to run smack-dab into them when we leave our everyday settings behind?

And what was this strange mix of emotions these memories seemed to stir in me? Nostalgia, yes. “A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations,” the Internet says. But I also want to describe it as more than that.

I think losing the loved ones we made those memories with changes the tenor of nostalgia, heightens the experience of it. It’s one thing to remember eating too much okra at a family dinner and to text my mom, “Can you believe you let me order an entire plate of this for dinner as a kid?” It’s another to not be able to anymore.

With the okra, the wave of nostalgia felt surprisingly heavy and a little like grief, weighing down my limbs and welling up as tears in my eyes. This lovely moment with my family suddenly felt sepia-toned, stained by what could no longer be experienced. Then — at the same time — it dawned on me that this memory from the past was that much stronger, that much sweeter because it was one I could never relive. I will not sit again at that table with those people. I will not again be that little girl who impresses (or appalls?) everyone with how much okra she can inhale.

Through this lens, I looked up to see my own children, barbecue sauce smeared across their faces. Rather than dragging me downward, the flashback functioned like a buoy, bringing me back to the gravity and levity of the present.

What if this is one of those moments for them? I thought.

Maybe it will be the Brunswick stew, a Virginia specialty, that they stumble upon years later at a roadside stand. Maybe it will be the sound of a fife and drum like the ones that serenaded us at an ice cream parlor later that night (when in Williamsburg!). Or the scent of chlorinated water seeping into their shorts after a watery roller coaster ride.

These, I realized once the fog had cleared, are the summer trips they’ll actually remember, much like the ones I remember from my own childhood. My youngest turned 3 last week and my other two are 6 and 8. Adults can generally recall memories beginning around age 3.

The AirBNB five years ago, with a pool for us parents to float in while our two-at-the-time napped? Those trips were for us and our cameras to remember. These trips today, these summer memories, they’re shared. They’re theirs to see and taste and touch in a way that’s actually quite out of my control. So are all the lovely, difficult, character-shaping summer days in between.

It’s an odd, out-of-body experience to realize all this when you’re on the vacation, when you’re trying your darnedest not to holler, “Don’t touch the glass jars!” in the foyer of the restaurant. It’s an odd, out-of-body experience to only have memories left of your own mom. It makes you think a little too much, I’m sure, about the way your kids will remember you.

I don’t want to put too much pressure on their childhood, on their memories, or on myself to “make” them (though studies do show taking trips helps them actually cement more memories, which is crazy.) We all know this part of life is precious and brief and maddening at the same time. We all know that the photo of the three cuddling in the same queen bed at nightfall turned into chaos around midnight, and that our sleepyheads will take some time to remember anything but, well, not sleeping very well.

But on this trip, I tried to welcome even the most unwelcome of memories. I let the faces flash and the tears well up and the smile follow. I received what they had to give me, the way they led me by the hand… from longing for the past to finding a little more here-I-am focus in the present.

And it left me thinking… what if instead of telling ourselves, “How do I want them to remember this?” we wondered: “What if they remembered this?”

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BOOK UPDATE: I turned in my manuscript for the book We Shall All Be Changed: How Facing Death with Loved Ones Transforms Us (Moody Publishers) in April. After a solid break from staring at the words, I got good feedback from my developmental editor last week and will be working through those edits next. I also got my book cover choices, my first endorsement and a release date: Feb. 6, 2024! If you know anyone who would be served by this book, forward this newsletter and invite them to subscribe so they can hear when it’s out. Thank you!

1. I couldn’t say for certain which Stroud’s location this core memory is from. I know we ate at the one in Wichita, especially when I was very young. And I know we ate at the one in Kansas City/Overland Park when my mom lived there for a few years. Perhaps I’ve even melded multiple dining occasions over multiple years into one. Aren’t memories funny, footnote-worthy things?