REMEMBER NEARLY EVERYTHING
… most memories simmer, some fade and few would we trade
Monday Feb. 17, 2014
Last month’s inconvenience seems only heartbeats away compared to crystal clear memories from decades past.
I remember yesterday – great dinner. Thank you great hosts LC & GC.
I remember the day before.
And the day before that.
I remember 34 years ago – daughter Krista was born. Hour of day, many childhood experiences, her first strawberry, her lallo-boops, her humour, her athleticism, her first heart-ache. And her zeal whether on a field playing soccer, ringette ice, beating me at chess, or Christmas morning unwrapping gifts and new-job adventures. Graduations. Celebrations. Birthdays. And the ketchup incident. So much between, so much day to day has been lost.
So much in-between, just empty time. Not that these periods are absent from memory but so randomly incomplete. Yester-year memory so selective, we recall parts of joy and quickly forget those grotty parts no matter how many years pass.
I read somewhere about memories being etched somehow with very powerful images – subject to instant recall – without regard to whether we want to recreate them or not, without regard to whether they are happy memories, sad or tragic ones, or whether they are ones we struggle hard to remember.
Happy birthday daughter – you are loved. Your presence and your viewpoint are valued and missed. Don’t stay away any longer. I miss you.
Memory isn’t emotion or emotional – until recalling something.
My memories are connected with emotions, strong feelings – not just recalling an event, something said or experienced, but remembering with incredible clarity how I felt in those moments, lingers longest. Lingers best.
We can’t replace or substitute memories.
Hurts and pains fade, I am told.
So do memories.
Mark Kolke
199,000
column written/ published from Calgary
morning walk: -2C/29F, steady breeze, sunny, more afternoon melting today. Our long hill walk was like vertical series of hillside rice-paddies, frozen of course akin to a vertical skating rink neither of us could handle. Gusta sniffing judiciously today – something she sniffed and ate yesterday has left her feeling lethargic …
