Thanks for the Memories

My brother came to visit last week. We had a number of moments where we recalled things about our folks which were, at once, funny and touching.   At one point, he said something like, "Remember the house sale and dad with the furniture."

I didn't.  He said, "you were there. you don't remember?"  And I said I didn't.

I do remember the house sale. The home had been sold and we came in from Boston and New Jersey to help out as we attempted to sell various items that my parents did not want to haul to Florida.  I have a pretty good recollection of various moments during the day.  Our folks told us that anything we wanted we could have--and I still regret not taking this expandable table which did not go until closing time.  I remember the goniff who tried to bid low on some pretty hoo hah picture frames.  And the woman who showed up two hours before we were starting.

But this particular episode my brother was relaying, I did not recall. So when he told the funny story, I laughed so hard.  The two of us were giggling like school kids.

Which was great.  The problem was that the next day I remembered that he had, in fact, told me the story before. But when he told me the story the prior day, I had no recollection of it.

The last twenty five years of his life, my father's memory had failed him.  He still was sharp in terms of reasoning and things like current events and politics.  But I could tell him a story five times during a year and each time he said that I'd not told him the story previously.  In the first ten years or so, I would say to him what my brother said to me the other day.  "You were there, you don't remember?"

A college friend lives nearby and a few times a year we get together and have a drink.  She told me some news on Friday which I professed not to have heard before. She said she was pretty sure she had mentioned it.  I said I would remember.

On Saturday I went for a walk and stopped short when I had the realization that she had indeed told me this news at a prior quaffing session.

Point is I am not certain of what I had been certain about.  I still can remember things that are stunning and my relatives are appropriately shocked when I pluck a fact from the fifties or sixties or remember how to get to a place I haven't been to in forty years. I know I will wow my classmates at our fiftieth high school reunion in the fall with trivia, and will be the go-to camper for esoteric questions about camp history when Chicopee cronies rendezvous in September.

The thing about memory though is when you lose it, you don't know it.  So, unless it wafts up the next day--you could be under the illusion that what you don't remember did not occur.  I am grateful for the memories I have and am also grateful that I have been fortunate enough to have a better memory than most--but these episodes have been yet another example that there is such a thing as deterioration and mortality.

Seize the day.