Relationships that just won't go away

On Tuesday, I cried.

It wasn’t because I bounced a check or because my alma mater doesn’t have a football team (ahem, UNC Charlotte).

I had tasted banana. And so, I cried.

These were tears of sadness scrambled with tears of happiness over a relationship I still hold dear in my heart, one that abruptly ended a year and six months ago.

I love the sweet flavor of banana. And how I miss my grandfather.

You see, my grandmother came out of the bank on Tuesday with her deposit slip and two suckers. Both were flavored banana. I took mine, unwrapped the paper, and the blanket of feelings enveloped me like morning fog setting in over a low-lying bridge.

Tasting the banana flavor took me back to never-ending summer days when my grandfather (or Pawpaw, as my sister and I preferred) carried us off to the Kannapolis Dairy Queen for ice cream. He picked banana, and so did I.

The banana is insignificant, but memories are a permanent imprint of our past relationships. We all have them; those remnants left by a relationship either ended by choice or by a higher being.

Those little reminders have a way of affecting our senses. When I smell spearmint gum, it makes me think of an ex-boyfriend who seemed to have an endless supply of it. When I hear a woman whistling in the kitchen, I long to have my great-grandma just a whistlin’ in hers again. When I see signs promoting the upcoming N.C. State Fair, I see myself at age 13 chasing boys up and down the midway with my best friend, who I haven't seen in five years.

It’s funny how those past relationships, the good ones and the bad, crop up in the most unlikely places and at the most inconvenient times. Those bonds are forever a part of us, and the little reminders serve their purpose – as mile markers on the road of life.

I know I won’t forget tasting banana on Tuesday.

Maybe next time I do, I’ll cry.