Do Memories Matter if We Forget Them?

My mom doesn’t technically have dementia. But, she forgets her 40-hour-a-week caretaker’s name as soon as she’s reminded, “Ada, mom. Her name’s Ada.” When I call to ask what she’s been up to, she insists playing tennis was lovely until my dad reminds her: “No, Susie. We watched Wimbledon.” She’s certain that she trained as a Navy SEAL last weekend and while I didn’t verify, let’s agree it’s implausible.

My sisters and I lament what she forgets: our birthdays, the food she likes, which close friend recently died. We also marvel at what she remembers: high school boyfriend, Mike Early, the sound of our voices, how to play Uno. And we each achingly whisper to the universe, “Please don’t let this happen to me.”

But the other day it occurred to me: it already is. To all of us.

We recently got this over-priced Google Nest device that, I swear, has increased my happiness by 10%. While I neither use nor care about a third of its features, I love that it shows my one million stored photos on repeat. Around Halloween and July 4th it scrolls through past images from that same season: dolphin and Hermione costumes, Americana parades, fireworks in a big Montana sky. Photos appear of my now 15 year old with her long-gone over-bite. A recent one showed my son in his crib a decade ago, soothed to sleep by a golf club and baseball glove, evidence of his forever love of sports. There are images of animated cousins playing charades on Cape Cod, my kids doing pizza and french frie down a Bear Valley ski slope, and neighborhood friends eating nachos in our kitchen on Superbowl Sunday.

The photos remind me of our abundant life and the fast-moving passage of time. And, as they scroll from one to the next, they remind me of what I forget. At least once weekly, I turn to my husband and ask, ‘Where were we then?’ as I squint to find hidden clues in the background.

Just yesterday one popped up of my daughter, likely five or six years old, holding onto the railing as she walked herself down the stairs in our home, dressed in a fancy baby blue dress with white tights, a white cardigan, and sweet black patent Mary Jane’s. Her wide eyes and restrained smile seemed to be masking brewing delight. But delight for what? Where was she off to in an outfit I know she rarely wore that had her brimming with anticipation?

And there’s one of me, my husband and two of our three kids dressed up and posing- it’s a photo of a polaroid. I’ve got my then baby boy on my hip and we’re all wearing plastic top hats, varied wacky sunglasses, and colorful boas against a stark, white background. It looks like a good time, but where? And with who?

Just like my mom, I lament what I forget and marvel at what I remember.

It’s sort of shocking to me - cruel actually - that, without a diagnosis of dementia or amnesia and with strong cognitive functioning, none of us remember every detail of our lives. It’s OUR life, after all.

I can accept foggy memories in post-partem days after infrequent and interrupted sleep, how alcohol leaves plot holes in an evening after being over-served, or how the brain stores trauma in a lock box to help us function. But why might evolution be so cruel as to decide that recalling a meaningful discussion in my college seminar, 'The Problem of God,’ isn’t valuable? Why can’t I remember the sound of my deceased grandfather’s voice, the name of that shitty hotel in Rome we stayed in, where I was for 2016 New Year’s Eve, or the name of the book I just finished? Why did I have this endearing feeling towards a woman at my 25th college reunion whose name I don’t even know? Why can’t I remember the topic of a single English paper I wrote in high school, why I lost touch with Alex, what decorated the walls of my childhood bedroom, the name of my daughter’s Kindergarten teacher, or the details of that gorgeous drive, only a few years ago, from the Grand Canyon to Zion national park?

Just a few weeks ago I had an epic four days where it seemed every component part activated aliveness. It started with a grueling and gorgeous 15 mile hike in Yosemite with three dear neighborhood friends. Then I got home and headed to an elegantly informal Bat Mitzvah in our friends’ backyard where a reading of Girls on the Rise - “We are gutsy, we are gorgeous, gleaming, giving, and gifted, glorious glitter and grit” - stilled my breath. Next I ran into a long-time friend at yoga and after downward dogging heard details about her father’s recent passing and the heart wrenching decisions made in his final days. And then, in the nose bleed section of Chase Center I rooted with my whole family and 15,000 other friends for the historic, first ever Bay Area WNBA team, the Valkyries.

I want to remember every detail of Half Dome’s majesty at the tippy top of that Glacier Point hike. I want to bottle up the inter-generational love and honoring of a girl’s coming of age that permeated that backyard ceremony. I want to always feel that moment of deepest connection with a grieving, long-time friend. I want to vividly recall that game, where, as though it were obvious, half of the fans wore t-shirts saying Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.

But, I can already tell the details of those most precious days are fading: What are all the topics we covered on that damn hike over eight hours? What was the song that finally got my son on the dance floor and uninhibited?

Just like my mom, we’re all forgetting. All the time. Our gorgeous brains can’t hold all we want to remember so we prioritize, sometimes in rather bizarre ways, the memories we hold and those we release.

In two days we leave on the ‘trip of a lifetime’ to Peru and Colombia: hiking Machu Picchu, rafting down the Amazon River, wandering the colorful streets of Cartagena. It’s been months and months in the making. And, I’m having anticipatory regret that we’re doing the walking food tour instead of the biking one and that we’re not making it to Colombia’s coffee country. Did we make dinner reservations at the most ideal spots? Over the two weeks are we packing in too much or not doing enough?

But here’s the thing: it doesn’t matter. My 10 year old may not remember this trip at all a decade from now and my 47 year old self is only going to recall singular moments, images, or unexpected and delightful detours. While tragic, it’s also liberating.

Perhaps remembering is not the marker of a good trip, a great weekend, an amazing event, or a life well lived. Maybe remembering isn’t what makes something matter at all. Instead, being fully in it - when it’s actually happening - and all the intangibles that are born from it, make it matter.

I now have that polaroid of my husband and two of our three kids posing (with top hats and boas) resting on my bedroom dresser. I still remain befuddled: how do I have zero recollection of that out-of-the-ordinary celebration?!? Secretly, I hope to remember something if I stare at it long enough and often enough. It will prove - right?!? - that I’m not dementia bound. But I also look at that photo long and often because it reminds me how fragile our memories are and how much we’re going to forget in this short life we live. I don’t remember that night at all but I believe - somehow - it imprinted in my kids that silliness, levity, and play is medicine. That matters.

Later this summer, my sisters and I are throwing my mom an intimate family party for her 80th birthday complete with recorded toasts from far away friends and temporary tattoos of her face that we’ll plaster on our cheeks or arms. She won’t remember it the next day. But the effort, the event, the coming together, and the honoring still matter.

I don’t know my long-term cognitive fate. Maybe it will mirror my moms, maybe not. But I do know my memory already fails me constantly. I lament that. But, more and more, if I pay attention, I marvel at how much matters even if I forget.