Category: Memories

Memories

Sharing Memories Brings Clarity

July 17th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

Sharing memories can bring conflict and confusion. (See Unreliable Memories Here) Sharing can also bring clarity and healing.

In eighth grade—upon returning from school—I was told that my brother had run away. My father was searching.  I was worried and confused. Why was my brother so unhappy? I wondered for decades until I asked.

“I never ran away,” my brother said. “Jeff and I skipped school. We got caught because of the snow. We didn’t expect an early dismissal.”

I didn’t remember snow.

“No,” I said. “The principal called to ask if you were supposed to be at school. Daddy had been searching since morning.”

A substitute teacher had called roll and thus attention to my brother’s absence. A classmate had seen my brother and his friend on school grounds. The diligent substitute told the principal, who called my mother.

My brother never knew there was a substitute teacher and hours of combing the woods behind the school.

We exchanged numerous details. Our combined memories gave a complete story. My heart rejoiced. My brother had been hanging out with a friend—not trudging down a road and severing family ties.

Any painful memories? Would asking questions help?

Memories

Unreliable Memories

July 10th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

Be careful before you believe what you remember.

Jane K. Cleland

When my younger brother was a child, he sprayed the kitchen of our home with the garden hose. That is a true fact.

My memories: My brother was two or three. He opened the back door and sprayed. I was soaked. I screamed for my mother to stop him. She wouldn’t. My older sister ran through the water and wrestled the hose nozzle from my brother. He hosed the kitchen a second time that summer.

My brother’s memories:  He was four or five. My sister and I had locked him out of the house. He deserved it. He plotted revenge and decided on the hose. When the back door opened, he took action. My sister and I ran down the hall screaming. There was one incident.

My sister’s memories: None.

During a long drive to visit grandparents, there was an incident involving a doughnut box. My siblings and I agree on that fact. We agree on the box’s yucky contents—and in hindsight we laugh. However, we have varying—sometimes conflicting—memories about other details.

Along the way, I learned that memories are unreliable.

How do you reconcile conflicting memories?

Basics, Memories

Process Your Moments: Part 2

June 5th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

We move on and don’t process. Take in moments and don’t move on.

Deena Kastor, Bronze Medalist, 2004 Olympics

My fractured knee, meniscus tear, and Baker’s cyst made my plans to hike favorite trails in the Shenandoah National Park seem not only ambitious, but also foolish. While waiting for lunch the first day, I fell off a sidewalk and sprained my ankle. With determination, a carbon knee brace, and a makeshift ankle brace, my husband and I continued with our agenda.

What happened? An easy, one-mile hike that usually took seventeen minutes took over an hour. My husband and I sat longer than we walked. Our slow pace continued the following days.

The trail became our destination instead of an overlook or a waterfall or the completion of a trail’s loop.

We asked park rangers questions. We watched butterflies. We attempted to identify bird songs. We watched a doe chase—and then nurse—her fawn.

We studied trees and gave them suitable names.

We compared wildflowers.

Because of my injuries, we took in our moments. We processed. We savored. I declared our four days the best of our forty years of hiking

Do you have time to process?

See Here for Part 1.

Memories, Parenting, Sharing Stories

Stories Impart Value

April 10th, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

Memories impart value. (See Here.) Recently, I pondered how stories are secondhand memories, and therefore, also impart value.

When my uncle showed me his train set, he told how he had constructed certain components—including failed attempts. Certain cars and scenes represented events in his life. The hobby also provided a distraction when he was depressed. His stories drove me to find appreciative new owners after he passed.

My uncle’s passion

Many of my uncle’s possessions, which I inherited, had neither memories nor stories. Who used the antique butter churn? What was the origin of the cast iron coffee table?  My brother recognized the cast iron cobbler’s stands and shoe forms as residing on my grandparents’ hearth before their death, but who used them?

With limited time and space, memories—both firsthand and secondhand—drove decisions. Based on my brother’s recognition, the cobbler stands made the trip to my home. Later research showed that my great-great-grandfather was a shoemaker.

Along the way, I learned I must tell others my stories about heirlooms. And ask for stories so I can make better decisions in the future. *

Are you curious about an heirloom?

*I’m perusing The Stories We Leave Behind by Laura Gilbert.

Family, Memories

Memories Impart Value

April 3rd, 2022
Mollie T. Cox

Along the way, I learned that memories impart value.

My uncle bequeathed me the contents of his home. As I packed china and depression glass and debated shipping furniture, my brother held out an item.

Is this the M&Ms dish?

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. I remembered its place by my grandfather’s recliner and the forbiddeness of snitching a chocolate morsel.

My brother remembered the too-loud clank of the glass lid when he was naughtier or perhaps braver than me.

I carefully packed the M&Ms dish, and later cried when another tried to claim it.

Look what I found.

This time my brother held out Rook cards, the same vintage as my parents’ cards.

The colored numbers brought back images of my parents playing Rook with their friends. Once, I got in trouble for peeking over shoulders and announcing a player’s hand. I felt like an adult when I was old enough to play Rook with my siblings.

My brother happily packed the Rook cards.

What made two objects—costing less than $20 each—priceless? The memories.

I wonder which objects my boys will eventually claim. (See Their Memories, Not Yours Here.)

Do any objects invoke your childhood memories??