The past, Hitler, and Rome, according to my mother.

"Hey! That's where my car froze solid one winter and I was stuck here for a week!" I exclaimed, arm outstretched, pointing to a multicolored leaf-strewn residential road on the outskirts of my old college town. My mom and I were driving through it last weekend on the way to our family cabin, which we were traveling to winterize. And I was in the midst of an ongoing flashback, nostalgic and thrilled by the rapid-fire memories I could hardly verbalize before they were overcome with another more powerful one.

"And that's my old house! Oh God, the fondue parties we used to throw..."
"I had my very first class in that building... and there is where I learned how to throw a football... and there's where we used to sled in the winter and mudslide in the summers... and that's where I'd always go to skip class... and that's where I met--"

I stopped short for a moment, torn between enjoying the memory for what it was and mourning its presence at that moment.

Undecided, I turned towards my mom in the car.

"Isn't it weird how strongly attached certain places and things are to people from your past? Even when you don't want them to be," I moaned, "they just can't be untangled."

"Oh honey," my mom scoffed, half-laughing, half-scolding, "tell me about it. I've got 30 years worth of those places and things!"

My mom is recently divorced. From my dad. Her first marraige "failed", if that's the word, after 30 years. And she's doing incredibly well - looks better than ever, smiles all the time -- it was a good thing ultimately, as breakups almost always are.

But the truth remained: she has more memories painfully tied to my father, a compulsive and abusive cheater and liar, than I have of my entire existance.

"Oh yeah," I said. "Does that make you angry? I mean, aren't those memories prone to just barging in unwelcomed?"

"Eh," she shrugged, "At first, I guess. But after a while you realize that all those memories are true, and really happened, and are a part of your past. What are you going to do?"

"I dunno, brainsurgery?" I quipped. "Have you ever seen Eternal Sunshine?"

"Well, there's a lobotomy, or there's recognizing that where you've been before defines you, regargless of if it was as graceful or as spotless as you wish it were. The fact remains that you are who you are today thanks to where you were yesterday."

I nodded. .

"It's like Hitler," she said. "He killed a bunch of people. Mostly Jews. It's horrible, you can't pretend it isn't, but in the end, is what it is. A real part of the real past. You can't undo it."

I nearly broke my neck I whipped my head towards her so fast. Searching her face for a hint of sarcasm while failing to hold back a torrent of horrified laughter, I managed to get out a punishing "MOM!" and then "You realize you just compared your ex-marriage to the Holocaust, right? Don't you think that's a bit much?!"

"Well," she said, eyes dancing with health and humor and a bit of that gypsy mystery she has about her, "Maybe, but when in Rome..."

"Mom, I don't think that's the right context for..." I stopped, smiled and shook my head. "Oh, nevermind."