I recently turned 55. "You've finally reached the speed limit!" exclaimed my younger sister, who had forgotten that the speed limit had changed back to 65 quite some time ago.

A few years back, I went most of a whole year thinking that I was a year older than I actually was. Being born in 1950, a nice round number, one would think that it should be easy to figure out how old one is. But I was born two days before the end of 1950, so I have to subract one...oh, well, never mind.

 

Forgetfulness runs in my family; it's in my genes. My mother's nine sisters all lived long lives, but they tended to lose their mental faculties long before their bodies gave out. Even while enjoying our best years, we may find that more disconcerting than physical limitations is a loss of memory. It approaches stealthily. You wonder how you could be over the hill when you don't even remember being on top of it.

 

An active, intelligent woman (I think she may have been a teacher at one time, if my memory serves me correctly) in her later years said to me, "When we lose our memory, it is distressing. It hurts when I can't remember things, because I used to be able to remember everything." I can identify with her. I note with dismay that the size of my vocabulary has diminished; I search my mind for words I can no longer find.

 

My own father said to me, a couple of years prior to his passing at the age of 81, "As far as feeling comfortable, I feel fine, though I can't do the work I could do when I was 30. I'm never sick, but can't remember anything. I wish I could. I can remember things that happened 50 or 70 years ago better than what happened last week or this morning. It's awful inconvenient when you can't remember anything."

 

One man said, "I have as much `get up and go' as I ever did, but sometimes I can't remember where I got up to go to." His experience is reflected in a poem written by a woman as a letter:

 

Just a line to say I'm living,

that I'm not among the dead,

though I'm getting more forgetful

and mixed up in this here head.

 

For sometimes I can't remember

as I stand at the foot of the stair

if I must go up for something

or if I just came down from there.

 

And I'm standing before the refrigerator

with my mind so full of doubt;

have I just put the food in it,

or did I come to take some out?

 

Then there are times when it is dark,

what with curlers on my head,

I can't remember if I'm retiring

or just getting out of bed.

 

My own mother was the thirteenth of fifteen children, twelve of whom lived to maturity. Now 89, she is the last survivor. Every week I make a trip to Bountiful to visit her at the Orchard Cove Alzheimer's Community, where she has resided since September. My only sister, Tam, meets me there. I cherish these visits with my mother and sister. I have been recording the choicest experiences in a little journal kept in her room. This record will preserve precious memories for me to hold close when my mother is gone.

My mother does not recognize us when we come. She does remember that she gave birth to six boys and two girls, and when I tell her that I am her first and oldest daughter, she can count on her fingers: "Dennis, Carol, Lynn, David, Mike, Cherrie...." She stops. "You're Cherrie," she says. (The twins, Tim and Tam, followed me, completing the family.)

When I went to visit last week, I took the little blue velvet coat, hat, and leggings that I had worn when I was very small. My mother was interested when she was shown the outfit, and we explained that she had purchased it and dressed me in it many years before when I was her little girl. But at the end of our visit when it was time for me to leave, she said politely, "Thank you for coming. It was nice to meet you. I hope to see you again sometime." Once again, I am a stranger to her.

 

Her worn and weathered body still

Holds on year after year,

While winds of time have blown away

A mind so bright and clear.

My faith that she will be herself

In that great time beyond

Comforts me, but still I cry,

Where has my mother gone?

         —Joy Saunders Lundberg, Where Has My Mother Gone?

 

 

 

My mother can remember and sing with us songs she learned in her childhood and youth—songs she taught Tam and me when we were children. She remembers and can still recite readings she learned as a child, but she cannot remember how to dress herself or whether or not she has eaten breakfast. And when, in our visits, I have asked her to recall something about her life, she has shaken her head, smiled sadly, and said simply, "You asked too late."

One morning each week I go to an assisted living center closer to my home to help residents with their life stories. I have found that most of them don't have even a skeleton of a story recorded. Sadly, too, I discovered that, for some of them, I "asked too late."

Oh, please do it now—Now, I say! Capture the memories of your life while you can. Not only for your posterity, but for yourself, as well. After all, "happy memories are handles to pull you up out of the bottom of the barrel."

I still remember the words to a song I heard and loved 25 years ago:

 

Good morning, yesterday.

You wake up, and time has slipped away,