July 29, 1764 might be the saddest this book has made me. Maybe it’s just me being older and in a different stage of life than I was when I first read this in 2020. But this: — “Later, Addie will be able to recall almost three hundred years in perfect detail, every moment of every day, preserved.

But she is already losing the sound of her father’s laugh.

She cannot remember the exact color of her mother’s eyes.” — Both things I can do now, even living away from my family and not seeing them for weeks. But isn’t this the fear? Isn’t this part of why it’s so unbearable to think of losing these people in our lives, because when they are gone we are left with one thing and what if that last thing we can take with us to our grave - our memories of them - disappears before we can bring them with us?

I also started thinking of my own mother, who lost her mom when she was in her twenties, how she had two little girls to raise without her. How she hasn’t seen her mom in over 26 years, how she would somehow manage to never cry when we talked about her over the years. How maybe she’s starting to forget things and maybe she’d like to be asked about her.

Her father passing the same year she left breaks my heart. Her mother never recognizing her breaks my heart. Addie having the ability to live forever with an infallible memory, yet being unable to hold onto even just the memories of the only people who ever knew her to exist… my god.

I wish I weren’t such a sucker for sadness.