Brahmani Velagapudi Week 15 - Forgetting
There are many ways and reasons why people can lose their memories. The one I am familiar with is Parkinson's disease which is a chronic brain disorder that can cause memory loss - a lesser known symptom.
My great-grandmother - who I was about to be named after - died of Parkinson's a year before I was born. My grandmother tells me about her all the time, weaving stories about how beautiful, kind, and generous she was.
My mother tells me about her shock and then her hurt as she watched her own grandmother's face twist in confusion as she struggled to recognize her granddaughter. All the memories, all the summers spent running across the front yard, all the stories shared - gone just like that.
I tried imagining that happening to me and my grandma which is a very real possibility because Parkinson's' is a genetic disease and therefore my grandmother could get it, so could my mother, and technically so could I. Each time I imagine it, it doesn't seem fathomable to me that something so permanent and ingrained in my mind could disappear from someone else's.
I personally think forgetting is one of the most tragic things about life, but it happens to everyone as memories overlap and details fade with age. What's even more tragic is when memories are taken away from a person without their knowledge.
Hello Brahmani! Your blog jolted me into realizing how families can be brought together and taken apart through the distribution of memory and the lack thereof. I do not think many of us understand the importance of memory in governing our daily lives—without the memories and experiences we have right now, we are not ourselves. I am sure your mother felt shocked after all the memories she had shared with her grandmother—for all of it to vanish with a startling question about who she is. I support your grandmother’s effort to remember your great-grandmother as she was before contracting Parkinson’s Disease; sometimes, we should all try to remember our loved ones like they once lived rather than focus on the latter parts of their lives, filled with difficulty.
ReplyDeleteI would advise you to enjoy the present and the time you can spend with your grandmother rather than worrying about the distant future, filled with uncertainty and possibilities. All we can do is pursue the best course of action in the present and hope for the best possible future. The picture you include with the blog has an emotional interpretation, considering the flood of memories that may emerge through simply viewing the image.
Hi Brahmani. I also think that losing one’s memory seems so unrealistic, but I’m sure that’s a result of me being much younger than my grandparents. Memories feel so close yet so intangible, which I think adds to the appeal of saving all of one’s memories in one’s head and the desire to never forget. When I was younger, I would try so hard not to forget anything—I’d write stuff down, take pictures, and at one point, I even started a diary. Looking back on that, it seems like childhood naïveté drove me to do all of that, but through those activities, I learned how to stay present in the moment and how to actively recall things that happened throughout my day. Also, I agree with your statement that it’s even sadder when someone doesn’t realize they’re losing their memories, as memories slip away so slowly that we don’t even realize we’ve forgotten until someone reminds us.
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