Showing posts with label memory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memory. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 30, 2022

Forgotten Memories

 

I was listening to a random conversation the other day where someone commented on the horrendous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911… suddenly I was reminded of a conversation I had (as a teenager) with a young woman whose mother, as a young child, was one of the severely injured survivors ——and it truly bothers me that I cannot remember her name.

 

How many people have we come across in our lives who made enough impression on us to remember bits and pieces, and yet not all the information? Admittedly, she was only an acquaintance, we hadn't been hard and fast friends, and yet her words about her mother's scarring and terrible ordeal did leave a lasting impression somewhere in the back of my mind. I don't even remember how I met her, just that at one time we "hung out" together and talked… like friends.

 

I have childhood friends that I remember vividly (or so I believe), most of them are no longer in my life. I often wonder what happened to some. Why is it we seem to remember some people even though we haven't spoken to them in (in some cases) half a century? And why is it we forget others even when something sticks in the back of our minds, just waiting to spring open when we haven't thought of them in years? I am pleased to say that I do have some very long-term friends who are currently in my life and those friendships I will always treasure.

 

Novelist John Irving said,
"Just when you begin thinking of yourself as memorable,
 you run into someone who can't even remember having met you."

 

 I apologize to those folks that I don't "remember" — it's terrible to admit someone has been forgotten. (Yes, I am sure that I didn't remain memorable to some folks either.) And yet, do we ever really forget when just a simple, supposedly unrelated, phrase is uttered and suddenly the memories come flooding back, but not quite all the way.

 

Allegedly the average person meets around 80-thousand people in his lifetime. I guess it would be hard to keep track of all of them.

 


 

 

Monday, July 6, 2015

Memories ~ #MondayBlogs

Memories are forever yours and yet there are times when the memories should be stored so that you never do forget.

Life changes, sometimes sad and more times happy, are good reasons to preserve those memories. In the fun movie 50 First Dates reminders of the past allowed the main character to move on with her life. Most of us thank goodness enjoy the ability to remember...

Baby albums which follow a child through grade school are precious memory keepers. Souvenirs from family trips help keep the fun in mind. Video-tapes, CDs and DVRs along with the older 8mm home films help to keep the images alive.

One of life's changes involves moving on such as leaving a family home for new adventures. Preparing to leave a home where children grew up, where rooms were witness to first steps, where couples grew old together can bring joyful tears and a need to hold on.

I'm making a "Memory Album" filled with my childrens' third grade paintings, greeting cards that were given to me through the years for various occasions, photographs of various keepsakes that would never survive packing and moving. Maybe paper waste to some, these memories will help to augment the ones I carry in my mind and heart.

In days to come I will be able to sit with my treasures and enjoy the past even when the past is no longer within my reach. I'm overly sentimental, I know. I look forward to my tomorrows. Everything that has happened to me has led me to where I am going and the future holds such promise.


Friday, November 22, 2013

J.F.K.


It’s a bit of irony that some of us seem to have difficulty remembering what we ate for breakfast and yet there are monumental events that we recollect with total clarity – even if it was 50 years ago.
I remember the exact moment I learned that President John F. Kennedy was dead, killed by an assassin’s bullet in Texas.
I was walking home from school along the Bronx streets where I lived. I was nine years old and in fifth grade. The faculty at my grade school never treated us like adults and apparently believed that any “difficult words” needed to come from our parents so even though it was obvious that some of the teachers were upset, the students weren't told anything.
I noticed small clusters of people talking in whispers, some crying, during my three block walk and I had no idea why. In front of a building just a few doors from where I lived I saw the woman whose children my sister babysat; she was very upset.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
She blurted out, “The president is dead. He was shot.” And she cried.
In my sheltered child’s mind I couldn't comprehend the magnitude of her statement. My first thoughts were, I’m embarrassed to admit, about my school class president and I had just seen him.
“No he’s not.” I was terribly confused as I answered her.
She yelled at me out of upset. “President Kennedy is dead!”
I stood there in shock as she ran away from me after sighting her children.
I don’t know how many thoughts ran through my mind as I ran the rest of the way home and up three flights of stairs. How could President Kennedy be dead? He was our American President, he had people protecting him. He couldn't die, who would take care of our country? What was going to happen now?
My mom was waiting in the doorway as I reached the landing. She saw my face and knew that I had heard the news and she held me and told me what had transpired in Dallas. I didn't want to believe it but she told me that it was true. And I cried.
I knew my sister was going to be upset when she got home from school, I knew that she would know. In high school the teachers tell you these things. And while I sat and waited for my sister so that we could console each other, and while I watched the news reports on the black and white TV in the living room, I just remembered…
I remembered a day a few years earlier when my sister told me that our next American President was campaigning a few blocks away. She had volunteered to hand out signs and she took me with her to see that great man in person. And we both shook his hand and I remember him being so nice when he asked my name.
The world was supposed to be a safe place. I grew up believing that my dad could fix anything that broke and my mom could make anyone feel better. That day the world changed. 
Yes, I had heard folks talk of important events that had taken place before… I had heard about WW2, the concentration camps, Pearl Harbor, the Depression and other frightening calamities. My parents even told me how they got married the day that FDR died.
To a young child it was just words. Now the nation was in mourning, it was something that I saw and I heard for myself.
November 22, 1963 was the end of innocence.