When we are old, we have a great deal more past to remember than we have future to anticipate. [There is a future beyond death to anticipate, but no way to imagine it.]
I like remembering. Some days I just run through the list of all my good friends and relatives, many of whom are no longer in this world, just enjoying the memories of them.
Memory is a great gift of God.
So why, when we have so much to remember, does God also arrange to have our brains go numb in the winter of our years, just as they get numb with cold in the winter of the year? Just when there is the most to remember, our rememberers begin to stutter and backfire like old cars.
Jo Hershberger has written a lovely story of four young girls who become friends in junior high and continue to support one another in old age. [Jo’s mother was one of my all-time favorite church members and used to stay with our girls when Helen was away tending to her own mother as she died.] The story is set in the imaginary town of Rockwell, IL, but it certainly looks a lot like Hoopeston, IL, where Jo grew up. The title is “Some Good Memory.” [1]
It’s a quote from Dostoevsky in “The Brothers Karamazov.”
“You must know that there is nothing stronger, or higher, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the personal home…If a man stores up many such stories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life. And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation.”
There are many methods by which old people are supposed to keep our memories working. I’ve most recently read that the best memory help is three brisk forty minute walks per week. I like that, since I already walk and have no intention of doing Sudoku or learning Chinese.
I suspect, though, that God gives us these failing brains to make us work harder at bringing back those good memories, so that we’ll appreciate them more. As you take that walk, run those good memories through the screen behind your eyes. Even if only one remains, that is enough.
Isaac Watts, in the third verse of “I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath,” writes “the Lord supports the fainting mind”
[1] “Some Good Memory” is published by Outskirts Press. Its ISBN is 978-1-4327-2513-6
GK said in his monologue this week (it was a repeat) something like this: "When I was young, I used to strive for faith, now that I'm old, I just surrender to it." The show is repeated today and I'm going to listen to the monologue again so that I can get the quote exactly. I loved the image of surrendering to faith.
ReplyDeleteCRS (Cann't Remember Sh_ _) is a common handicap for many of us moving into our winter years. We tend, A Barbra Streinsant sang to Robert Redford..(I can not remember the movie or the lyrics) "We remember the good and forget the bad" (Memories?) (Or something like that). Fortunately, my CRS is corrected (constantly) by Marilyn, who forgets nothing. I'll start a story from the past and she will say, "No Bob, it was... And then she finishs the story as it actually happened. On my part, it isn't very important what actually happened. What is important is that I have a story that gives me comfort in my old age. See! That is the god given gift of CRS. We can remember it anyway we want to. Fortunately, Marilyn never goes fishing with me so I can tell stories in her presence uncorrected. Did I ever tell you about that morning in Septermber 91 I caught...?
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