Memory

 

Yesterday Jerry, his brother, Wally, and I were driving to a 50th wedding anniversary party. When the conversation turned to past events, Wally brought up their Aunt Ada. She had a stroke in 1989. The date is especially easy to remember because she was born in 1900. It must have been interesting to have a birth date that easily converted to what age you were when memorable events took place. For most of us, that involves a little bit of computation.

But some things can’t be remembered or computed that easily. For instance, although all three of us knew the details of Ada’s stroke when it happened, when talking about it in the car, we all had distinctively different memories of what happened. Wally claimed that she lay unconscious in her house for days before anyone found her. Jerry claimed that she had a stroke outside in the hot sun (from doing too much yard work, he claims, but that’s just Jerry’s take on yard work.) I have a distinctly different memory which I would bet money on being the actual event. Ada’s neighbor noticed that she had not opened her drapes in the morning, and immediately checked on her. She found Ada collapsed by her clothes washer, and probably been laying there for a few hours.

Ada was their aunt, so I didn’t make much of a point of it, but what I took away from the conversation was how differently we remembered facts. Well, I remembered facts- I don’t know what those two were thinking.

Nancy Sherer

 

 


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