Tammy Letherer Last week I had a disturbing realization: I forgot to write my blog. I typically send it out on Wednesday or Thursday and it was Saturday before it even crossed my mind.
I’ve been sharing a blog every week for nearly three and a half years. There have been times when I’ve had to skip a week here or there, but that has always been a decision.
This time it was not intentional. I just completely blanked it out.
Here’s what was happening instead: I called my mother and she answered the phone in tears. Her car wouldn’t start and her Dish TV wouldn’t work. She was alone and confused and overwhelmed. This has been happening more frequently since she was diagnosed with early Alzheimers.
Over the last few months, I’ve listened from three hundred miles away as she’s struggled with the frustration and fear that comes with memory loss—not just forgetting doctor’s appointments or birthdays or a neighbor’s name, but feeling the helplessness of no longer knowing a house key from an ignition key or how to use a TV remote.
I sometimes try to imagine what that must be like but usually choose—intentionally—to blank it out.
As someone who wrote a memoir, losing access to memories feels especially frightening. In fact, the entire writing process seems an exercise in remembering: I may want to preserve the loving words I overheard a couple exchange, or the way the sunflowers lower their faces at the end of the summer, or the sound of my daughter’s voice when she sings.
Too often I forget the important stuff. I have brilliant ideas that are here then gone. An inspiration that seems so obvious and divinely-timed one moment can evaporate, leaving me to wonder why some random thought ever seemed special.
The best I can do, I think, is to write as much as I can when I can, and know that I can’t capture everything.
Sometimes I write to remember.
Sometimes I don’t remember to write.
Always, underneath it all, is a desire to connect and to feel less alone. Memory is that connection, but so is presence.
So I like to think that my forgetfulness last week was a result of me living in the moment. And that having new experiences, even difficult ones, is just as important as recording old ones.
