In the past couple of weeks I’ve been tagged six* times to do this meme that’s floating around the Internet where you make a list of twenty five things you want people to know about you. I thought I might as well say, for future reference, that I’m not going to do it no matter how many times I get tagged—because frankly, I feel that I have done plenty of that kind of sharing here, among other places. If you read me here, you know as much about me as I want you to.

But I am very much enjoying reading what my friends have been choosing to share, and one of them (a dearer heart the universe could not have made) ended her list with the following words: “If I have ever loved you,” she declared, “I still do.”

If I have ever loved you, I still do.

I felt lucky to know that. The love of a girl like that is well cherished. I’m afraid I can’t say that the same is true of me. I have adored many people in my life, quite sincerely and deeply and for long periods of time, whom I no longer love.

But I thought about what I could say, and searching through the swirl of memory and change I found that this, instead, was true: If I have ever loved you, you are with me still. I remember your face. I remember your voice. And I remember what you taught me.

*As of two minutes after I made this post, seven times.