Memory, Memories and Loss

Ben Franklin's Poor Richard said in his Almanac, that we don't realize the value of water until the well grows dry. The loss of something important highlights its value. (How well I remember a several week stretch, when we lived in the country, going a few weeks without any water coming from our well!) With loss of memory, Poor Richard’s proposition is only partially true, however. Part of the problem with profound memory loss is that the one who has it cannot remember that she has it. Only to the one who can remember is the value of memory highlighted by its loss. Such memory loss is not that alone; it is part of a larger complex; it is the result of certain brain shutdowns often deemed dementia.

I have been blessed with an excellent memory; the person I love more than any other has not been so blessed. Perhaps, in God's gracious Providence, my memory is good enough for the two of us. I pray that it will be so.

Profound memory loss also brings memory distortion. A traumatic childhood experience becomes paramount. Old fears become memories. Recollections get convoluted and sometimes romanticized. A healthy memory  does far more than enable one to recall the past;  it is the keystone to the arch whole living. Without good memory, you never know where anything is or should be. You don’t remember where you are going as you dress for the occasion. You can’t remember that you just said something; every assertion is original even though you have said the same thing over and over again--that demands a new normal for those around you. Other than a few very familiar places, you are never quite sure where you are; and, other than a few familiar faces, you never know who you are talking to or with. Everything gets distorted--even the genuine humanness that we were created to have as image-bearers of the Creator. Living without a memory robs a person of the abundant life, the zoe, that Jesus said he came to bring. (This in no way is a suggestion that less than whole persons are not God's image-bearers.)

The truth of W. Somerset Maugham’s maxim, “What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.” is multiplied by this dehumanizing condition. Everyone, and especially those of us who are aged, has some memories that could be destructive or at least burdensome, if we so empowered them to be. But, it takes a healthy memory and mind to remember that we have the ability and power to not allow the negative to dominate our minds and memories. The other side of that coin is to embrace God’s forgiveness, and to remember that when we have done so, our Lord does not remember our sins--hold them against us, and neither should we. (Psalm 103:12) Memory is not only about what went on in the past, it is also about what is going on inside and outside of us right now. We are now whom we have been becoming. Memory is a marvelous gift; it is one of the, if not the major distinctions between critters, although they have remembrance, and creatures--we humans--who were created in the image of God.

Even so, my cup runneth over.