Editor's Note: Caroline Palermo wrote this for an assignment in her senior English Class with Mr. D'Allesandro

By Caroline Palermo

Mar. 3, 2021: Nostalgia is my own personal medication for the COVID-19 pandemic. Everywhere I turn, there seems to be something bad happening to someone perfectly good or someone bad doing something even worse than what their personality may suggest. 

The current world is so chaotic, I rather float in the past than sit in the present. I could wonder in the future for a while, but the uncertainty of it all makes my stomach hurt, so I’d rather travel through time like Marty McFly than anything else. 

The human brain is my own personal movie theater, and that is where I watch replays of my most fond memories as well as arguments that I wish I could’ve won. Recently, I have been playing this scene in my head as I was inspired by a notification that popped up on my cousin’s calendar the other day: “On this day in 2009, my grandmother resurrected a fish.” 

My mother’s aunts are both nuns living in a convent. Every year of my childhood, my family members and I would drive upstate to see them at their annual festival held to raise money for the nuns’ religious order and the schools at which they taught. 

Upon arrival, my brothers and cousins -- whom I refer to as the boys -- immediately stopped at the Win-a-Fish contest. There, we paid money for a set number of ping pong balls that we would throw into, well, a fish bowl. If you make the shot, you win a fish. It’s pretty simple. The boys passed the test, winning the family 10 fish over several years of participation. Seeing how the boys could barely clean their own rooms, it was unlikely that they would have the drive to take care of multiple aquatic animals. So, we gave them to my grandmother, who accepted them without hesitation. Over the course of several years, my grandmother took care of these 10 fish. She fed them daily and housed them in her nicest vase. Unfortunately, many of them passed on. 

First was Arnold, who passed away most likely because he was overfed with Progresso Italian breadcrumbs. Then there was Palmer, who couldn’t stand life without his better half. Later came Penn and Teller, Tom and Jerry (evidently, we were obsessed with iconic duos at the time). To our surprise, the last survivor was the pipsqueak of the bunch: Fishie. As you can see, creativity escaped us the day he was welcomed to the vase. 

Fishie lived alone for a while, possibly the best time of his young life. The boys were growing up; many had moved on to college and could no longer attend the festival. Some started families of their own. Others became animal rights activists. Meanwhile, I had just started wearing a new pair of glasses that I was ready to flaunt in front of my fifth grade class. (It’s the little things in life.)

We were finishing the moving-on stages of parting with the tradition of our beloved festival when, in the car on her way home with the boys from baseball practice, my aunt received a message from my grandmother that played over the loudspeaker of her baby blue minivan: 

“Eileen, it’s your mother!” (a fact my aunt knew, as caller ID flashed on the dashboard). “I have terrible news, the Fishie just died.”

“Okay, Mom. I’m with the boys. We’ll be right over!” With the slap of my grandmother’s flip phone, the call had ended. My aunt and cousins were prepared to send Fishie into the afterlife. The funeral would consist of songs and speeches, tears and tissues. Before pulling into the driveway, my aunt once again heard the ring of her phone over the loudspeaker. 

“Eileen, it’s your mother. I brought the Fishie back to life!”

The minivan erupted with cheers.

My grandmother is gone now (as is Fishie), but the boys and I still laugh when we recall her miraculous resurrection of our aquatic friend. It's moments like these that have allowed me to fall in love with the feeling of nostalgia. 

As I am physically in the moment, I always replay the past. The past serves as a reminder of happier, simpler times before the pandemic. But, now as I contemplate how I want to live, I wouldn’t pick the days that have gone by or the days to come; I would pick the now. Because before something grows old and turns into the past, or lives in the eternal dreamworld of the future, it has to serve as the very real and unfolding present. While life now may be daunting and filled with heart-ache, there is always something to look forward to: spending time with friends, and celebrating special occasions with family —the beautiful now. 

When we love living in the present, life becomes infinitely better. But when the present isn’t doing so well, do what my grandmother did: take it out of the fish bowl, run it under some warm water, and pat it on the belly to bring it back to life.