Memories

My brother and his sweetie got married last October and I contemplated saying something at the rehearsal dinner.  I dug deep into the (shallow) depths of my brain to come up with a memory that I could share that was appropriate for the occasion.  I couldn’t actually come up with much.  Sure, I came up with some things that weren’t appropriate for the occasion but I couldn’t really remember many things from the previous 33 years.  Sad.  (And really, I didn’t think I could get up to speak and not break down in tears so I wasn’t really planning on saying anything.)

I find sites like Facebook to have opened up some black holes from my past.  Entire episodes that I don’t remember at all are presenting themselves in pictures, and if it weren’t for those pictures I’d question them existing at all.  And that also begs the question, are there things that I remember because of the picture or is the memory just the picture?  If you know my mom, you know there are pictures all over her house.  There are 37 years of pictures, many things I don’t remember (and hair styles I’d like to forget) or wouldn’t remember if not for the picture.  Where do those memories go?

I got an email from someone on Facebook who references things that happened when we were in high school.  I hate to say that I don’t remember those events.  At all.  How is that?  How is it that someone can have vivid and complete memories of an event and I could have no memory from?

It worries me that Courtney is going to grow up and I’m not going to remember things.  That’s one of the reasons I started this blog, I don’t want to forget anything.  I know I can’t remember everything but I want to capture what I can.  I want to be able to answer questions for her when she gets older, I don’t want all my answers to be, “I don’t remember.”

And how do I get back some of those other memories?  I suppose I could ask people….  But what if they don’t remember?