I remember liver and onions.

I remember chicken and dumplings.

I remember Twinkies.

I remember Dittos, the pants we all wore in middle school. Dozens of 12-year-old girls with upside-down “U’s” on their bottoms! Colors: baby blue, pink, lemon yellow, seagreen. Mine? Always too short.

I remember trying to get my hair to feather like Farrah Fawcett’s.

I remember finding my dog, Sarah, in the pitch dark outside of our house. I called for her, then followed the rope with my hands from the tree where it was tied. I ran my hands all the way up to the top of the fence, then felt the weight of her body. She had hung herself.

I remember my mother letting my sister and I stay home from school the next day.

I remember my friend Kim rolling her eyes when she found out I had missed school because my dog had died. “You don’t know how I feel!” I shrieked, screamed. She reminded me that she did know. Her mother had died, remember?

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Written as an assignment for an online writing class I’m taking, a five-minute exercise in the style of writer Joe Brainard‘s well-known essay, “I Remember.”