My favorite line from the 2018 live-action Disney movie Christopher Robin was when little Winnie the Pooh turns to the boy Christopher and asks, “What should happen if you forget about me?”

There is an innate fear for many of us that we will be forgotten, left behind, or that people will move on beyond the pale of friendships and even love.

My closest friends have expressed that I’m a very inwardly reflective person. And much to their frustration, they sometimes express in their own ways that my reflections are often veiled in the grays of melancholy.

“What am I to do with you?” an exasperated past intimate said as we walked through a school park in Lincoln Square on a cold, dark Chicago March night—after a few drinks at our favorite bar.

It is not lost on me that the atmosphere of this conversation matched my thought at that moment—that I asked the question, “What should happen if you forget about me?” in my head, about this man I loved.

It’s been five years since I’ve been with that person.

But it brought a smile when he texted me recently that he was thinking about me because of a compact disc he pulled out. It was orchestral music of Star Trek—from a night we were gifted tickets to see a performance of Star Trek music through the generations at The Chicago Theater.

We never really forget people, do we? We leave deep impressions upon our hearts and minds, depending on the context of our relationships.

“What should happen if you forget about me?” Winnie the Pooh asked—Gerry asked.

We move on.

But there are little flickers in the gray shadows of the pale. And sometimes the flicker excites bright for a moment. In that moment, we aren’t forgotten. In that moment, what had been… is.