The beginning of the fast always makes me think more attentively about simple things—food, time, people. The other day, deciding to make fried potatoes for lunch, I pulled out a few potatoes, began to peel them, and—just as it happens every time—thought of my schoolmate Lesha. “May he rest in God’s Kingdom.” His memory returns to me every time my knife touches a potato.

It has been more than twenty years since he taught me the quickest way to slice them. He was a cook back then—waking before dawn, rushing to the restaurant kitchen, cutting mountains of vegetables long before most people had even opened their eyes. He knew countless tricks, but this one, the potato trick, stayed with me for life. And so each time I cook potatoes, I say—sometimes silently, sometimes out loud—“Memory eternal, Alexei.”

That simple ritual made me wonder: Who else do I remember with gratitude?
And what are the little things I carry from them?

I began to sort through memories the way one sorts through old drawers. My teachers came first—some brilliant in their subjects, others unforgettable for their life lessons. Then the round blue sunglasses my godfather bought me. The electronic keyboard gifted by an old friend, at a time when I needed it most. A thousand small skills, gifts, and gestures from many different people—yet each one remains a warm thread woven into the fabric of my life.

And then a thought struck me: isn’t every grateful memory a kind of prayer?

That brief moment when we remember someone with warmth or appreciation—does it not resemble the beginning of a prayer for them? We think of the person with gratitude, we wish them good—whether in this life or the next. And because God knows every thought of the heart, He also knows these small, grateful moments we offer up as memories. Perhaps our remembrance becomes, in His hands, a quiet, unspoken prayer.

People once wrote on the backs of photographs: “For a kind memory.”
As a child, I thought it was only a pretty phrase. But now I understand: it was a genuine wish—May you remember me kindly. May your thoughts of me do good.

Of course, in the vast scale of the universe, my little memory-prayer is tiny—just a drop. But many drops make rain, and many quiet remembrances become a gentle good in the world. Each time we recall someone with gratitude, we help generate that good. And in our own hearts, gratitude grows—toward God above all, the One who arranges these small encounters, these teachers, these gifts, these moments of kindness.

So if a simple potato can bring back a soul with love, then memory truly is more than nostalgia. It is a blessing—both given and received.