You CAN, and in fact WILL, take it with you.

No, not your money -- but your memory, or memories, of course.

They are one of the few things in the world that belong uniquely to you. Even if you go through the same experience with someone else, your memory of it will be completely your own.


A fingerprint on your brain.

I was thinking of this for a couple of reasons. One of our daughters was talking about something recently that made Russ and I both raise an eyebrow and grin at each other -- it was a skewed memory, at best, perhaps even a fabricated one.

Which is not the same thing as a "fabrication" (read: lie), but is some kind of tricky amalgam of events and perceptions and time.
We all make them.


"You Don't Say," L.K. Hanson


Chelsea and I were at the store the other day and had a little disagreement. It was actually a failure to communicate about this:


It did not involve whether or not to purchase the package of candy (we were already in agreement on that, of course) but we were looking for the best package -- the one containing a good ratio of flavors we both like. Chelsea kept telling me she really liked the blue ones; I didn't see any packages with blue. After a few puzzling minutes I realized that Chelsea calls the purple suckers the blue suckers. So while her mouth is watering for delicious blue tootsie pops, mine is getting itself ready for purple grape-y goodness.

One man's blue is another man's purple, I guess.


"F Minus," Tony Carrillo


Last week my father sent me a history of his mother that he had just written, at the request of some cousins who were putting together histories for a family reunion. It was fascinating -- some of the stories I had heard before, some validated or explained personality traits I remember in her.

There was even a big moment where I
recognized something in myself and said,
"So that's where that came from!"
Fun to still be figuring things like that out.




And it got me
thinking how
I would love
to be able
to read her version
of the same story.



Put the two up side by side and enjoy the story that emerges between the lines.



But alas she left us all too soon,
and took her memories with her.

In the packet were some pictures I had never seen before.

In this picture, for instance,


judging by her facial expression I think we can safely assume that my dad's memories of the day might differ slightly from his mother's.

Which I'm finding, as my kids get older, is often the case. I only wish they remembered things better than they actually were more often.



Note to self:
Space is increasingly at a premium.
Try to concentrate on storing the best parts.