“It was called the Casa Bonita.” I said. “It was on Colfax Avenue. Colfax is around 26 miles long and straight as an arrow, kind of like the Seney Stretch of Denver. I remember ordering a Dr. Pepper at the Casa Bonita.”
“You can remember what you drank?” my mom replied with a bit of surprise.
My mom and my much-older-than-me sister* stopped by for a visit on their return trip from the Detroit area over the Memorial Day weekend.
We had stepped out to a local restaurant for a bite to eat and had started talking about the decor in the place. That’s what prompted my mother to ask what the Mexican restaurant we ate at in Denver was called. She was surprised that I could remember what I had to drink, because it has been over 30 years since we were there and I had been about 10 years old at the time.
I also remember buying a pack of balsa wood for carving at the hobby shop next to the Casa Bonita, but I didn’t bring that up.
This started me thinking about the way our memory works and why it works better for some than others. I have very vivid memories of my life dating back to near infancy. Sometimes I think I can remember being born – not being able to see, of course, but the feeling of air reaching my lungs for the first time and the panic that it causes. If my memory of birth is correct, it’s no surprise that babies cry when they are born.
I don’t think that I have a photographic memory, but I can remember names and details, insignificant details, rather well. My best friend, Denny, on more than one occasion has consulted me to make sure he was remembering our childhood correctly. He has referred to me as “his” memory. Actually, I think his memory serves him quite well, as he has brought up, many times, things that I had forgotten.
My long term memory is great. My short term memory fails me rather frequently, but I usually forget things that I deem as unimportant to me. This can be a problem if what I am forgetting happens to be important to you. If I am picking up hamburgers and you ask me to remember to get extra ketchup, there is a better than good chance that I will forget to ask for extra ketchup because ketchup ranks at absolute zero on my importance scale.
Sometimes I wish that my memory wasn’t so good. Sure, it comes in handy while watching “Jeopardy,” but it was my memory that helped send me into a somewhat severe pre-midlife crisis 10 years ago or so.
I think that memory loss can be somewhat of a blessing as we get older.Living with a person who has memory loss can certainly be a test of patience, as my mother can attest. My father’s memory had started to fail at a relatively early age. His memory has deteriorated to the extent that my mother cannot take care of him any longer, and he is now staying at the Jacobetti Home for Veterans in Marquette.
He can’t remember a lot of the things that have happened to him recently, and I’m not so sure that it is a bad thing. He has been rather miserable since he retired last summer, and he was in a near constant state of complaint. Now that his memory has started to go, it seems that he forgets that he has been in almost constant pain from arthritis for the past year. Now it seems that he looks at the pain as something that he has been dealing with for today.
He also seems to be forgetting all of the things that he can’t do anymore. I think that those may be the best things to be able to forget. I think that I would want to forget the things that I used to do if I could no longer do them. That way I wouldn’t dwell on the fact that I am not as capable as I once was.
My grandfather spent most of his life in the world of agriculture. Right up until he was in his 90s he maintained a garden. When his health started failing, his memory went shortly after. He could remember stories from his youth but he couldn’t remember who his children were. He didn’t wallow in self-pity over the fact that he couldn’t work in his garden anymore. I don’t think he could remember that he had a garden. I do know that he was quite happy, and he was especially happy to see visitors, even if he had no recollection of who they were.
That’s how I’d like it to be when my turn comes around, if I don’t keel over in the woods somewhere. I’d like to have all of the memories of my younger days and I’d like to be glad to see you, whoever you are.
* Is this better than being called my big sister?
* I think you know the answer to that question already.
ReplyDeleteSorta
Well Sorta, rest in knowledge that Far is the oldest (and probably the heaviest).
ReplyDeleteI rest in the fact every single day that all of you are older than me. I have Farr older, Sorta older and Waye older. I think that is pretty neat.
ReplyDeleteTeensy Braver