When a day is done, whether good or
bad, it immediately becomes history. One of the things about history is
that you can’t go back and change it; nor can you go back and
relive it.
As far as history goes, we all learn
important dates in school. In fact we learn more dates than we can
ever remember. Sometimes our teachers help us devise tricks to
remember and with a little rhyme, we might always remember a date.
“In fourteen hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
How could I ever forget that date?
That’s history class. I always
enjoyed history, outside of the date thingy. History is
stories...important stories...about events that shape us now, although most school kids think history is boring. The reason it is boring
to kids is because the rich stories of the past are reduced to facts and dates, and
some of those are presented in a biased and controversial manner. It is interesting to hear that
sometimes important events are skipped in the history that children
are taught today.
Each of us has a personal history with
dates that stick in our minds to be re-examined annually. We have
birth dates, death dates, anniversaries, graduations, and a myriad of
other events not only to mark time, but also to remember. Is it any
wonder that with all these dates stuck in our heads, buried deep
inside our brains, that we sometimes forget an appointment or a loved
one’s birthday?
Today’s date takes me back to a day
twenty-three years ago when I saw my dad leave this world. It was on
the anniversary of his own dad’s death. I called my mom tonight and
we talked about a lot of things before she brought up the date. I
knew it was on our minds from the first “hello.”
Our brains are so complex that we can’t
even comprehend all that goes on between our ears. I can’t
visualize how many a billion is whether I’m talking about dollars
or nerve cells in my brain. Understanding my brain would be a lot
like understanding how I can write words on a keyboard and have
this computer take those words and allow me to put them on the
Internet where anyone can read them. Perhaps,
as perplexing is to comprehend how anyone can totally understands how that
process actually works.
Historical facts we learned, and our
own personal history, is stored in our brains. We have much more
stored in our brains than we can ever retrieve. If you are like me,
you know it’s there, but can’t retrieve it at the moment you want
it. For instance, if you are playing a game of Trivial Pursuit and
you know the answer, but can’t remember what it is until
immediately after the time is up. Worse yet, you need to know an
important piece of information and instead of remembering it at the
crucial time, you remember it in the middle of the night.
Memory and history are two parts of the
same thing. When two people share a history, and Alzheimer’s
subtracts that connection, it is a loss for both. Our page in history
is our life story, and we want that story to be action packed, suspenseful,
and with a glorious ending. With personal history, the dates are not nearly as important as the stories. The only test in life, is a test
of self.
Copyright (c) September 2013 by L.S.
Fisher
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