My Memory and Memories

One of my (many) projects this year is completing the Monday Meals cookbooks.  I've been talking about them for 3 years now.

To accomplish this goal, I spent time this last week trying to order all the pictures I hadn't ordered up to that point.  And then I discovered I was missing almost a year of my life in pictures.  I checked all my picture discs...  I checked my computer...  And nowhere.  Nowhere could I find the pictures from June 2011 to April 2012. 

I was horrified.  Distraught.  Frustrated.  And, quite frankly, upset with myself.  How could I be so careless as to erase pictures from my memory card without making sure I'd backed them up to disc???

True, I could piece together some stuff from facebook (like all the food pictures).  But what about all of the other pictures I'd never posted anywhere else? 

Here's the thing:  pictures are something I horde.  Because they help me remember moments of my past.  They jog my memory. 

Many people have told me I have a pretty good memory.  A freakish one is how it's been described at times.  And I'm so grateful for it.

No, I can't tell you the exact date World War II ended.  And I can't tell you the major exports of a given country I probably had to learn about in 7th grade.

But I can tell you when you may have owned a particular vehicle or gotten in a car accident... Or what movies we saw the summer of 1999... if I happened to know you then.

It kind of reminds me of this poem I memorized for an assignment (in 5th grade for Mrs. Sprague's class, if you really wanted to know).  It is called Memory, and I loved it.  (I don't know who wrote it, or if that person is anonymous.  I think it was anonymous.)

My mind lets go a thousand things
Like dates of wars, and deaths of kings.
And yet recalls the very hour -
'Twas noon by yonder village tower.
And on that last blue moon in May,
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the book beside the road
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine scents and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild rose tree.

That's kind of how my memory is.  If it was significant to my life -- or yours -- I can generally remember it, and roughly when it happened.

And sometimes, I rely on pictures to help jog those memories.  To help me pinpoint a moment in time. 

True, there are memories I have which will never require a picture to help me remember.  Like the day my daughter was born.  Or the day I got married.

But there are still those memories I fear would fade without pictures or something to spark that memory.  (I used to also horde memorabilia.  Like a questionnaire I took in 4th or 5th grade in which I claimed that, if I could have someone famous visit my class, my top 3 choices would be Debbie Gibson, Rod Stewart, and -- no joke -- Jane Fonda.  My number one choice.)

I'm not saying I live in the past.  But I do like to remember it.  The happy moments that make me smile.  I'm grateful for my memories.  And my memory.  One of the things that seems horrible to me about aging -- and it happens more with some than with others -- is the loss of those memories, especially through Alzheimer's.  It seems a horrible thing to me to lose my memories.  Where even a picture won't help me remember.  I've been promised that my mind and intellect will always be healthy and bright.  And I hope I live worthy of receiving that promise.

Of course I do believe that we'll have it all restored to us in the eternities.  And for that, I'm also grateful.

Because my memories are a part of me.  The events of my past have shaped me.  And I'm grateful my memory is a good one -- to help me remember the moments of life that make life grand.

P.S...  With the help of my husband... We found the pictures.  And I am ever so grateful for that too.

What are you grateful for today?