It is said that memories make us vulnerable. Memories haunt the mind and provoke unreasonable emotion where none should exist. They make us fear what only subsists in the past, or mourn what is no longer real, or feel hatred towards that which will never matter again. These recollections tear us apart until we are nothing more then an exposed being, decorated in scars.

But I beg to differ.

When memories are pulled from a person, that person looses context, and understanding, and any kind of strength. He is stranded in oblivion, a place where the concrete becomes elusive, and the certain becomes chaos.

Today, I saw someone I love, without his memories. He lay still on a hospital bed, but I’m sure his mind was whirling in a dark realm, fast and alone and terrified.

You don’t realize who a person is until he doesn’t know himself.

When a person losses his memories, those shared recollections seem to float around you, perhaps forcing one party to reconsider vividly what the other is detached from. You see the memories everywhere, and you want to bottle them up and return them to their owner. Or you want to wrap yourself in them and pretend they are real life.

But all you can do is cherish them.

 

Do not fear, my father’s memories will not be gone for long. However, until he is well enough to recognize them again, I will keep them safe.