I’ve never been big on anniversaries.
I’m not sure why. When I was dating, I didn’t pay much attention to the time I’d been seeing someone. I do remember one boyfriend buying me a silk rose for our 3-month, 6-month anniversary? It caused him to get a lecture from his mother that we were getting too serious.
My own wedding anniversary sneaks up on me almost every year, and I have to think about it to make sure I get the number of years right. My husband is more thoughtful and romantic. I don’t expect gifts, but one year he surprised me with a bracelet that I love, and it’s special to me.
My parents’ anniversary is in January. That’s all I can tell you after all these years, and I guess that’s terrible. It was a big deal to celebrate my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary — we had a great family get-together, and I still have a wonderful picture of the two of them. It’s a happy memory.
I’ve known the anniversary of April 27, 2014, was coming — that awful day that a tornado raged through the state and killed 16 people. It’s been in the back of my mind, but life keeps going. It seemed to be here before I knew it, and I didn’t make all the calls or do all the stories I wanted to because there are always other deadlines to meet.
In the past year, my older son has gotten married; my brother and his wife, as I write this, are expecting their second baby any second.
The world just keeps going. Sometimes I hate that.
We just had the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, and my husband remarked that some of his college students weren’t even alive when it happened. Sept. 11 seemed to slip by pretty quietly, although I do remember that when it happened, the world seemed to stop on that horrible day in 2001.
Nobody could stop when the tornado tore through those communities in seconds and ripped apart homes and lives. I talked to so many of those people in the days after the event, and no matter how horrible it was for them — whether they lost their home or their husband — they couldn’t stop. They had to clean up and pick up the pieces of their lives and go on, put one foot in front of the other.
But it doesn’t mean we forget.
I still think of the people I’ve met through every tragedy that I’ve covered. A woman called me last year after I wrote a column about being a mother and aching for those who lost sons in the tornado. Her son had died in the storm.
I cried when I listened to her message on my phone, and I listened to it several times. It meant a lot to me. I had a terrible cold, and I could barely talk, so I didn’t call her back. Busy days turned into months that turned into a year. I lost the piece of paper where I’d written her number. I still think about her. If you’re reading this, I’m sorry.
Every story I’ve told in the newspaper, and some I didn’t, stay in my heart. I replay those in my mind in the early hours of the morning when I can’t sleep because I am stressed about a deadline or worrying about something going on in my life.
People will recognize the one-year anniversary of last year’s tornado in different ways — by praying, installing plaques and markers, having services, honoring and remembering. It’s up to us to keep those memories alive as we go on with our lives.
That’s why anniversaries are important.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.