do you remember Noor?

today I asked my parents if they remembered Noor, i described the house she’d lived in, and the first time we met, the bunk beds in her downstairs living room, the story her dad told us of how Noor and their German Shepard had been born on the same day.

today I remembered Noor after more than a decade, consciously and altogether differently. i can’t say i have thought of her frequently, but i have touched upon memories of her in passing, at the edge of my consciousness, in fleeting moments.

my memories of Noor are blurred, held together at times by a lilac cardigan and a gilded brooch, other times by a shadow at the top of the slide, an ice cream cone, a winter afternoon giggling by the side of someone’s 2007 corolla.

i can remember her face, but only as a well defined shadow. her hair was dark, and straight, cut short but evenly. i don’t remember if she was taller than me, but i do remember that sometimes–oftentimes, she leaned over me.

i remember Noor in the slightly restrained, shy conversations we would have as she swung around on the monkey bars, and i dragged my feet on the swing. the only time that restraint let up was by the side of a car.

i remember Noor from my last day of school, an accidental memory i wouldn’t have if i hadn’t opened the classroom door. she was sitting on a desk, legs swinging, yelling along with her friends, stopping because i told her she wasn’t supposed to be sitting on a desk.

i don’t remember Noor as well as i remember all the little thing she made me feel, things i can only feel, never pen down, and occasionally share with someone else before they too fade.

in a way, I miss Noor as much as you can miss someone who’s existence you doubt beyond your own mind, who’s memory only makes sense years later when they start to fade from reality.

so today i asked my parents if they remembered Noor.