Travesty

I rewind the etymology podcast 15 seconds because I missed the details about the origin of the word travesty.

I want to listen again—more closely—so I learn it, so I can recall it later in conversation… because if I tell you how travesty—from “traverse” and “clothing”—came to mean “shockingly unfair,” you’ll think I’m smart.

Lost in that thought, I suddenly wonder:

“DO I REALLY HAVE TO COMMIT EVERY FACT I HEAR TO MEMORY?”

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From the warmer side of a very cold glass window, I see Costco sells boxes of 10 Original Chipwich Vanilla Chocolate Chip Premium Ice Cream Sandwiches for $12.

A memory flashes from 1980.

My Aunt Linda and Uncle Ira are visiting from Los Angeles.

We’re sitting around the dining room table in my parents’ New York City apartment, eating Chinese food my dad and Ira had just brought home.

“Tell them, Linda,” Ira says. “Tell them the cookie ice cream sandwich story.”

Linda smiles.

“On our flight here,” she says, “the flight attendants came down the aisle handing out ice cream sandwiches—vanilla ice cream between two chocolate chip cookies. They called them Chipwiches.”

“And you didn’t bring us any?” my dad teases.

Linda rolls her eyes, blinks a few times, and completely ignores him.

I remember thinking, “Adults don’t act like adults all the time.”

Why have I remembered this?

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I doubt anyone reading this knew Chipwiches were test-marketed on eastbound DC-10 flights cruising 35,000 feet above the ground.

I also doubt anyone needs to know that.

So what am I doing with that memory?

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When my best friend Michael died in 2019, I remember wondering: “What happens to the memories we shared now that he is no longer here to remember them?”

Memories connect us.

Until they don’t.

Which is why Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are so heartbreaking. Watching a loved one lose their memories is like watching love drift out to sea while you’re still holding the person’s hand.

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Everything I remember will someday cease to be remembered.

A travesty.

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Maya Angelou reminds us there is something that lasts longer than memory:

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I don’t need to remember every fact.

Trivia is trivial.

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What matters is not who or what we know.

What matters is who and how we love.

rB