My grandma showed up in my dream the night before last.
She does that a lot, actually.
She’s been gone for more than half my life, but she shows up in my dreams.
The worst is forgetting she’s not there anymore.
The weird part is realizing she never got to know me as an adult.
But this was supposed to be about memories.
Mine aren’t that clear, as a rule. I don’t have a great memory overall, so my memory of my childhood is mostly a series of still images.
The barn. The corncribs. The back room at Grandma’s, curled up on the spare couch reading.
Play Uno with Grandma.
I spent a lot of my childhood with my grandmother. She took care of me when my parents were at work or building the house, so I was over there a lot. Making cookies. Crying. Playing dolls.
Grandma made me a quilt for my doll crib. I remember that, too.
All just flashes, though.
I don’t really have a place this is going, I guess.
Maybe I’ll take it in another direction and try again.
A friend asked for his birthday if people could share memories of him — because, like me, but for different reasons, his memories of his 20s and late teens are pretty much gone.
My husband has a theory — or read a theory, not sure which — that the memories that you reinforce are the ones that you hold on to.
…this probably explains why I can still remember my ex-fiance breaking up with me.
But it doesn’t tell me what to do about the ones that are slipping away with time and degeneration. Our wedding kiss. The first time we went out to dinner together.
(I’d rather forget the first boy I kissed, to be honest).
The things I learned in Sunday School, and the people who taught them to me.
*whispers* anything from my early childhood with my mother. Wait! Wait, planting things. Going to the market. That’s better.
Washing the floor. Going to Stoneybrook.
I guess the memories are there, aren’t they? They’re just not right at the top.
But when I try to get more than the little soap-bubbles of memory, they burst. Like all that’s left is a fragile photo hanging in mid-air of my memories.
And I don’t know how to do a tape back-up of my mind.
Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one experiencing that, or worried about it. Your husband is absolutely correct.
It was why I was journaling. But then I stopped rereading previous entries, and then I stopped journaling altogether, and a few years after that was when the days started blurring together. (Or just stopped being noteworthy, but who knows.)
These days, I’m resolving to make more memories. Sure, maybe I can’t remember them. But I know how to get more.
I like your friend’s idea. I may try it myself, or share it with a friend of mine who is also missing years of his life for good reasons.