Memory is still a very important topic for people in my age group. Every Tuesday I have breakfast with a group ranging in age from 68 to 78. Sooner or later one of us will talk about problems remembering words, events, appointments, history, etc. A neurologist has said that this is a normal function of aging. The time to become concerned is when you forget the function of certain objects i.e. you don’t know what a stove is. I had a patient many years ago that had severe organic brain damage. Her family was still letting her drive. When I began questioning her about this, she admitted she didn’t know what a stoplight was and thought that it was a clock. Thankfully her family removed her car keys.
The thing about memory is that everything we have seen or done is stored somewhere in our brain. Sometimes a word, a song, a smell can bring back very vivid memories of the past. Imagine walking into a house where someone has just baked Chocolate Chip cookies. What would that smell do for you? Would it bring back memories of your childhood? For many people it does.
I had another patient who began to have extreme panic attacks in the summer when road construction was happening. The smell of fresh asphalt reminded him of the smell of helicopter fuel in Vietnam. He would often stay in his house all summer long and not want to come outside because of it.
I am thinking of this because my sister and her family are going to spend a week at a lake in Michigan that we went to as children. My uncle owned a small cottage there. His son and I were the same age and we would often spend the entire summer. The more my sister talked the more memories came back. It was a very small and primitive place, but we thought it was the grandest place in the entire world. We had a very small boat with an outboard motor. My uncle would let us take the boat and go out on the lake. We would swim all day and then collapse at night. One of the highlights of the summer was when would go to a small restaurant/store near the cottage. They had some small arcade and pinball machines. We would save our pennies and small change and look forward to playing them. It was a very innocent time. The more my sister talked, the more memories of that time came back.
I once heard Carl Whitaker say that he never really thought you lost anyone. He said that if he tried, he could bring back all the sounds and smells of the room his father died in almost 60 years ago. As long as you have those memories you are never really alone. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed. When someone close dies or leaves, the pain is very sharp. It feels like it will never end. As time goes by the pain is still there but some of the sharpness goes and you get on with life. Some people never get thru it. My grandmother would say two rosaries a day for my grandfather after he died until her own death. My mother would break down in tears years after my father died. Other people have told me they can go for weeks, months, years without thinking of a deceased love one, and then suddenly something will trigger them. The memories, both good and bad, burst thru. I have had many people say things like: “ I haven’t thought of my mother, father brother, sister, etc—in years. Why am I thinking of them now? “
Sometimes it seems like we all have these hidden passwords to our own past. We don’t know what the passwords are. We don’t know where they are or what they will unlock, but when they appear we are amazed at the result. Sometimes this can leave us laughing. Sometimes it can leave us in tears. Sometimes it can terrify us. I had a patient who suddenly remembered severe episodes of abuse that happened when she was 5 or 6 years old. She remembered when she was 25 because of seeing something on TV. The memories literally overwhelmed her. Our mind really does try and protect us, but sometimes that can also be a problem. Those who suffer from PTSD would like to find a way to safely deal with their memories. Their memories are not the happy ones, but the terrifying ones. They creep in and seem like they will never leave. I know that there is now an experimental drug that produces a sort of amnesia so these poor souls can let go of the trauma of their past.
For the rest of us we just have to deal with this enigma of our own memory. We all have so many memories and our individual filing system remains very mysterious. It would be great if we had a magic key to enter and file clearly and really discard the unpleasant ones. However that is not the way our minds work. So I will try and be thankful for the memories I have—both the ones that make me laugh and the ones that make me cry.