Facebook serves up memories on a daily basis. Every day I get a complete rundown of what I was thinking, or what the kids did or said. Every post takes on the weight of history — deserved, or not.

Yesterday, this photo showed up. Young A is sitting on a bench on a rainy day. He’s two and a half years old. I remember that day. Young J was at day camp, it was raining, and we needed to find something — anything — to do. We went for a walk in the rain, and when we got to the corner, we came upon some workers from the city drilling holes in the sidewalk to install a brand new bench.

We stood under the awning of the dry cleaners and watched them work. It didn’t take long, and suddenly, there was a bench where there had not been one before. Young A was invited to be the first to sit on it, and one of the guys wiped the rain off for him. From that day, we call it “Young A’s bench.”

I thought about this photo all day yesterday, and eventually realized why it was haunting me. That photo was taken when I was just a civilian. A mom with a toddler to entertain in the rain. My concerns were any mother’s concerns. 

Eight months later, when Young A was three, I’d be diagnosed with melanoma, and I’d never again get to be the person I was when I took this photo. Although I’m much (older and fatter and slower and) wiser now, I miss that person.