Memories | Page 2 of 7

What If I Remembered?

July 22nd, 2023
Mollie T. Cox

Memories are important. But what about the ones that slipped away? After reading about unremembered family events. (See here.) I have been wondering how would I be different if those memories still existed?

Would I trust others more? Or less?

Would I trust my instincts more? Or less?

Would I take more risks? Or less?

Would I be more creative? Or less?

Would I be calmer? Or more anxious?

Would I perceive myself as dumber? Or smarter?

Would my adult hobbies be the same? Or different?

Would I have more respect for family and friends? Or less?

And many other questions.

Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.
Oscar Wilde

If Wilde is correct, my diary has gaps. Big gaps.

What do I wish I had known and am learning along the way? My perceptions—especially about myself and older family members —are inaccurate.

Has someone’s memory ever changed your opinion?

Memories

Memories That Slipped Away

July 15th, 2023
Mollie T. Cox

For days, I delved into letters and cards dating from 1923 to the early 1990s. I discovered much about people I thought I knew. For example, my mother. Boy did she have a lot of beaus in college, and I thought she was overlooked.

And my grandmother. I knew she had a quiet family wedding. Her father disapproved because she was nineteen. However, I didn’t know the marriage surprised neighbors and extended family.

While a preschooler, my sister was more creative and skilled than she remembered. Once, she pantomimed multiple musical instruments.

Of course, I learned about myself. I wish I had a video of sixteen-month-old Mollie laughing and clapping 30 minutes straight at her older sister’s birthday celebration. Or fetching her jacket later that day and saying, “Want to go.” The answer to trick or treating with her sister was “No.”

I wish I remembered three-year-old Mollie being taught whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes by her five-year-old sister. Or her four-year-old thoughts when she said, “Write Grandmommy that I’m drawing her the silliest picture.”

Unremembered childhood events feel like a lost self.

Do you long for memories of events you have heard about?

Family, Friendship, Memories

Processing Pain

April 8th, 2023
Mollie T. Cox

Take in moments and don’t move on. Take it in so you can be wiser from your moments.
Denna Kastor 2004 Olympics Bronze Medalist

I am quoting Kastor’s words for the third time in two years because her words resonate with me. I regularly need to take in my moments and am more joyful when I do.

However, how do I process painful moments? I stuff. Down deep. Until a situation or a photograph or a spoken word evokes the pain. Or it pops to the surface for no apparent reason. (Like the night I wrote this blog.) Sometimes I have forgotten the pain for a long time.

I am learning to sit a few moments in both past and present pain and experience the emotions of loss or grief or disappointment or disregard or betrayal. To probe the extent of what happened and how it affected me. My forgiveness is superficial when I deny the cost.

To paraphrase Kastor:

Take in Pain and don’t move on. Take Pain in so you can be wiser from your Pain.

Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. Isaiah 53:4

Friendship, Memories

Wound Openers (Reprise)

March 25th, 2023
Mollie T. Cox

An innocent acquaintance opened an old wound with her simple question (see here). I understood my unexpected reaction, but what if I hadn’t?

One morning during a conversation among friends and acquaintances, one woman made a statement about World War II. Another disagreed. That seemed the end of it until one came to me and expressed her anger. Frequently, she encountered the woman who had disagreed with her. Each time, ugly, intense feelings overcame her. She wanted to forgive the woman—for what I thought was a benign statement.

I gave some shallow advice, but my husband immediately identified the problem. The words had opened a wound that needed healing.

I knew that the father of our European friend was a businessman in territory captured by the Japanese during World War II. I knew our friend was interned by the Japanese and spent her teen years in conditions slightly better than a prisoner of war camp. I didn’t know that although she immigrated to the U.S. as an adult and told stories of God’s grace and care during those difficult years, our friend still had wounds that bled easily. Thankfully, she agreed to counseling.

Any insight into identifying old wounds?

Family, Friendship, Memories

A Day to Read Letters

February 25th, 2023
Mollie T. Cox

I love letters and so does my family. While a preschooler, my middle son stuffed my mail into his top dresser drawer. After being caught with bills, he explained he wanted his own mail. He got it—all the advertisements.

Like that son, I found childhood mail thrilling. Great-Aunt Frances sent a me letter full of jokes in which she had inserted the names of family members. My grandmother sent me updates about the cardinal who ate out of her hand. She sent her great-grandsons cards with a dollar or two stuffed inside.

What thrills me as an adult is the family history those letters contain—minutiae dear to my heart.

Those details are stuffed in five cardboard boxes and one plastic shoebox. It has been years since I read them systematically.

While September 1 is World Letter Writing Day, there is no corresponding day for reading letters. The closest is National Reading Day on March 2nd. I read every day so perhaps March 2nd should be my Letter Reading Day. As my husband says about many family events, “You couldn’t put this in a book.” I am glad we put them in letters.

Any letters deserving another perusal?