Fallible Memory

For most of my life I’ve kept a journal. Starting at age 12, when I had a “Dear Diary,” book, I started writing what seemed important in my life. I think they were meant for girls to write about their crushes on boys, but, being a serious child, I recorded my fears about the Cuban missile crisis.

I kept writing into my college years and after, although not regularly because I was busy with classes and then work. But now when I go back and read more than (sometime sporadic) 60 years of journal-keeping, I have to question my memory. Either I’ve forgotten much or I’ve gotten it wrong. What if I didn’t have this journal to remind me of what really happened, so that my memories would be selective, and I would remember only the good and not the bad—or vice versa?

Even my brothers and sisters (seven of us, total) have different recollections of events we experienced together—Christmas day, visiting grandparents, trips to the family cottage, where I only remember sunny days when clearly the summer weather in Wisconsin includes a lot of rainy days. But does it matter? Maybe being happy is more important.

My friend, Evelyn, 92, remembers very little, including her age, imagining that she’s sometime in her 60s. What she doesn’t remember she unknowingly makes up. When I visited her recently at her memory care place, she was sitting in front of an iPad that endlessly cycled through family photos. When I asked about the people in the photos, she told me stories that I know to be wrong. She told me her granddaughter’s name, which was close but not quite right.  She thought her son had two daughters when he only has one, and that those two daughters produced grandchildren who were lovely and smart. Do we make up stories that make us proud of our family?

She told me that the food in her nursing home was delicious and that she and her fellow residents just “gobbled it up,” and yet at our previous meeting she said she never went down for dinner, and that staff brought the food up. But how much more fun to imagine enjoying a tasty dinner with your fellow residents.

Her son, who lives a thousand miles away, calls her every day, she said. I have no doubt that he cares for her, but I doubt that Mark, who has a busy working life, calls every day. But isn’t it better to make up these loving stories than to complain that you never hear from your son and that your granddaughter is failing in school. I remember my mother made her life miserable because her children didn’t visit or call enough to satisfy her need for attention.

Maybe our memories reflect our personalities: is the glass half empty or half full? Maybe it’s better to make up memories when we’re not sure.

But Evelyn seems happy, lost in her world of successful granddaughters and a loving son. My father, too, didn’t seem bothered by his loss of memory. Starting in his 80s, he couldn’t remember the names of friends, relatives or the orders doled out by my mother: “Paul, I told you an hour ago to take out the garbage.”

Yet he maintained his joy in life. He loved gardening, but it wasn’t until his 90s that he stopped planting, because he realized he was forgetting to water the tomatoes and basil. Even with a bad memory, he could sing, play the piano and take part in an all-harmonica band until he had a stroke at 94. When he forgot that my mother told him that their granddaughter would be visiting later, he was delighted and surprised an hour later when she knocked on the door.

My dad, who loved ice cream, also loved talking to strangers we met on our walks, even if he couldn’t remember the conversation hours later. Can we still enjoy having ice cream if we can’t remember what we did the day before?

Is it necessary to remember correctly every aspect of our lives? What if we’re just happy, no matter what we remember? Are our delusions wrong? I don’t know, but I think about memory a lot, especially since mine seems to be gradually slipping. I remember a dentist telling me once he had “photographic” memory, but it didn’t make him happy because he could never erase incidents he would rather forget.

When Evelyn and I met, we talked for half hour, my old friend telling her own version of stories, while I listened and told her my own stories. Who knows what was accurate? We were just happy being with each other, old friends who worked together decades ago, remembering our favorite versions of our lives.

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Friends Lost but Not Forgotten

In rereading the journal I’ve kept for most of my life, I came across Maggie, a coworker with whom I became friends with when we worked together at a weekly newspaper. She was younger than me, and I like to think that I taught her some of the rules of the trade.  Remembering her, some 30 years later, I felt a fondness that I had forgotten or didn’t know was there.  

I wondered what happened to her. Did she ever have children like she wanted? Did she ever move on in journalism, become the writer and editor she was destined to become? Would she remember me, and, if so, as someone who helped her battle the powers that be?

I have a friend who, in his mid-80s, has made strong efforts to connect with old friends. In his older age, he is flooded with memories—of a friend he met in the military, of a college classmate and even an old flame. Using Google, I’ve helped him find some of them, but others are lost to history. Some wanted to reconnect; others were happy to let old relationships lapse. I thought he was doing this because he’s been lonely ever since his wife died two years ago but I see something else.

As we reach the end of our lives, I think there is some need, some yearning, to connect with people who were part of our lives, whether co-workers, classmates or friends. Maybe it’s as simple as putting our lives in order and tying up relationships that were never completed. Even if people are no longer in our lives, we can acknowledge to ourselves the relationships and their importance. I would love to know the rest of Maggie’s story, and every other person who I felt close to.

A prominent spiritual teacher says that all the people we have known have contributed to who we are, often in some unknown way. In our older age, imagine how many people we have encountered–whether friends, coworkers, lovers, neighbors, fellow dog walkers, medical healers, even members of our book club–who have pushed us, inspired us, infuriated us and maybe gave us more insights into who we are. Our encounters with them changed us a little or a lot but, in any case, left an indelible stamp on us.

Last spring I took a walk in an old neighborhood where I once lived decades ago, a historic neighborhood with modest brick Victorian houses and yards that had been well tended, with overflowing bushes, varied flowers and trees that had protected this neighborhood for at least a century. Maybe it was the spring day or my mood, but I felt overwhelmed by memories of old friends who had lived here.

There was the house where Diana lived. We were good friends once, part of a writing group, but then she moved away and we lost connection except for a slim one on Facebook. A few years ago she died of cancer. There’s no way to feel her presence unless I stood in front of her house, a small bungalow, until someone came out and asked if I needed help.

Down the block a different Diana had lived. She wrote theater reviews for the newspaper where we worked and often invited me to join her. I am grateful for how much she taught me about theater. Decades ago, she also moved away and I think has since died.  All that’s left for me is her wonderful old Victorian house with the wrap-around brick porch.

Three blocks down is the house where an old friend still lives. Many decades ago we had a terrible falling out, yet I still carry so much tenderness, after our long friendship, that I hoped to see her in her front yard tending her garden. If I had seen her, I might have dropped all feelings of embarrassment and even hurt and hugged her as hard as I could.  

As we near the end of our lives, we realize the joy of relationships, of being close to others, of knowing another person in all their humanity, of the importance of love. Hopefully, we’re able to leave behind the judgments and petty feelings we had when we were young and see old friends in a more generous light. We can let our hearts swell with affection, especially after we’ve lost so much.

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Staying Home

I recently took a short trip not too far from home. It was mostly a familiar landscape with a few new additions. I was eager to get out of the house, and even familiar trips can offer a different experience: landscapes seen in a new light, conversations with strangers who I briefly bond with; dining at new and familiar restaurants, where I can try new meals; and staying at an old-fashioned motel where our room faced softball fields and an osprey nest on a tall light pole.

It was fun and not too adventurous for an old woman, but I found myself longing to just sit in one place: maybe at the lake with the startling view of the high peaks; or the river where I heard bird songs that were new to me and could watch joggers, mothers pushing baby strollers, fishers, and young and old couples.

Instead my friend and I ended up driving for hours trying to get to the next place, and missing dinner in our need to get home before it got dark. We drove past towering red cliffs and along a wide river; through a lush meadow like I’ve never seen in my home state; and through an old mining town—but it all went by too fast.

When I got home, I was happy to just settle down, sit in the backyard and listen to the birds, continue decluttering the house, and sit at my desk and work on my computer while I paused to stare out at a familiar landscape—the field behind my house and the mountains in the distance. Though I saw many spectacular places on the road, I’m happy to enjoy this one, which is so beautifully familiar.

Is this something that happens as we age? I’ve always loved seeing new places, and I still do, but I’m more content now to enjoy the place where I’ve lived for more than five decades. I know our brains slow down (at least mine has), so it takes longer to absorb the world, especially this fast-paced one.

My friend Elaine, who is 92, is in a memory care place. When I visit her, she’s either lying on the bed or sitting in a chair next to an iPad where photos of her family scroll by. She seems content to be doing nothing or very little. Maybe it’s enough that our brains are filled with all the people we’ve known, the places we’ve lived and our work life (even if we don’t remember them all), and we don’t need anything else. Maybe we just need to sit with our life experiences and absorb them.

My friend John used to climb the highest mountains in the national park, and now he’s not interested even in driving through the park, sitting at their bases and looking up with wonder at the summits. At age 88 he’s got a different routine: reading the night away; meeting friends for lunch in town; taking his recyclables to the sorting station where he enjoys his conversations with the man who staffs it; and, of course, endless doctor appointments. His life has slowed down enough that, he told me recently, he just started noticing clouds.

There’s a pleasure in routines: seeing the first light in the east as I make my breakfast, watching my cat enjoy his first meal of the day; my daily meditation; my afternoon walks on my favorite trails; even trips to the grocery store. I look forward to my weekly Silver Sneakers class and getting together with old friends at our favorite happy hour spots.

When I stop trying to get ahead and rush to the next place, I find a deep contentment of where I am in my life now, a willingness to settle down with the person I’ve become.

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