I Don’t Remember

We watched a movie on Saturday night about a man, about my age, who was suffering with Alzheimer’s.

Early on, he is speaking with a woman and he asks her if he can take a break for a moment so he can write down what she said so he can remember.

Made my heart hurt because Kathy’s Mom lost her ability to remember the days of her life, and my Mom has certainly been battling it.

My Grandfather, Clifford, died young, by today’s standards, and he certainly didn’t recall much about what was happening on any given day, although he would tell me stories about growing up.

It’s an amazing, confounding, sad, horrific affliction, and I say, ‘amazing’ because while it removes all the good memories, it also takes away the earth-shattering memories of heartbreak and despair.

I’ve been blessed with a pretty good memory. I have recall of conversations that I had about 50 years ago. I remember all the shots of the last round of golf that I played, and I last played at the beginning of March!

When someone mentions a date, I can go back, way back, to that same date decades earlier.

I simply can’t imagine not being able to recall, and it’s something I truly fear given that it’s in my family tree.

I’m going to be 60 this year, and I think back to when I was in my 20’s and I thought about someone being 60 years old.

“He’s ancient!” I would think.

Well, here at just past the all-important 59.5, I think ahead about the next 10 or 20 years and I consider that eventually there’s going to be a breakdown dead ahead.

No one gets away unscathed.

I suppose that one can’t think about it too much…

…live, laugh, love, right?

But losing one’s ability to simply remember is high up on the list of things I can’t comprehend.

Life, man!

Deals some mighty blows.