Remember

Sometimes it is hard to remember. I forget the little details, I forget the special times. Everything fades and blurs into each other, until I am afraid that I will forget my own childhood.

The oddest things stick with me. I remember when I was in first grade and my teacher was telling a scary story. She grabbed me to use me as a prop, when suddenly my tooth fell out.

My earliest memory is when I was three years old. I remember my old house in Massachusetts, but vaguely. I remember a garage sale, my uncle coming to visit, and a case of chocolate syrup. Sometimes I wonder if I made up these memories, maybe from stories my mother told me. But I know in a certain part of my brain, there are memories that are there but I can't remember them. And that scares me.

We take pictures to remember. We want to remember the fun times we had. I can only imagine having amnesia and not being able to remember who you are, or recognize the people closest to you.

It is a scary thing to forget. My mother told me a story of something I did when I was little, but I don't remember it. I don't remember how I celebrated my ninth birthday. I don't remember when my little brother was born. Sometimes I wish that I could record my whole life, so I will never forget anything.

And then I remember. I remember the things I try so hard to forget. I remember the people I wish I never met. I remember being scared, I remember being hurt, I remember situations I wish I was never in. and it is then that it hits me; the power of memory. G-d gave us memory so we could remember, but also the ability to forget. Sometimes, it is okay to forget. Sometimes we forget because we don't want to remember.

I remember the things that matter. And yes, I forget. It is hard to forget. It is hard to search your memory for something that you know must be in there, but you can't find it. It is like looking for something that is lost. I wonder if it is lost forever, or if it is in there somewhere, waiting for the right time to pop up, waiting until I need a reminder of a time long gone. And then it will surface.

Sometimes I worry that I will forget my childhood. Sometimes I worry that I will forget everything I ever learned. I worry about being old and having no memory at all.

But then I remember that I will never forget me. I will never forget who I am. I will never forget the people and the times that mattered the most. I am reassured because I know that there is a hidden part of me, the part that remembers how to walk every day, to eat and sleep and drink and talk, I know that part will never forget.