My grandpa passed away a little more than two weeks ago. He was a loving, good-natured man with a great sense of humor, who had a funny quip for almost every situation or conversation. He enjoyed woodworking and baking, made amazing pickles alongside my grandma, read voraciously, and spent a lot of time outside in the garden. He gave great hugs, got along with everyone, and always wanted to be the first one to greet you at any family gathering.
He also had dementia, and for most of the last ten years his mind was slipping. At first, it was barely noticeable. He’d forget little things or flub words, get confused by some question you’d asked. As things got worse, some of his more difficult, focus-based hobbies fell by the wayside. He began to struggle with following the big, noisy conversations our family is famous for. He forgot how to use the computer or re-set the TV. He got turned around while driving, even when he was going somewhere he’d been hundreds of times before. By the time of his death, his abilities were so limited that it was honestly hard for me to remember that he’d ever been any other way.
The memories shared at a funeral are always a mixed blessing, but that was especially true at my grandpa’s funeral. The photo arrangements were stark reminders that he’d once been hale and hearty and clearheaded. That he’d had a big personality and a rich, full life before the dementia came along, even if I’d been too young at the time to recognize it. While my parents and my dad’s siblings told stories, I tried to come up with a few stories that were centered around my own memories, instead of passed down through the generations.
It was more difficult than I expected. Even though I had nearly twenty-nine years with my grandpa, I still had to think hard to bring even a handful of those older, less tarnished memories to the forefront of my mind.
Then, just when I was starting to feel guilty about how little I remembered, I thought about my childhood journals. From the time I was really young, I was equal parts fascinated and horrified by the prospect of losing my own memory and forgetting about everything and everyone that had once mattered to me. That might sound like an odd fear for a kid to fixate on, but even at eight years old I understood that I would gradually forget certain aspects of my life–due to the passages of time if not the ravages of age–if I didn’t take the time to write them down.
I kept journals from the time I was eight years old until I was twenty-three or twenty-four, and though I don’t look back through them frequently, I am always more surprised by the level of detail that younger me thought to include than I am by what she chose to document. I may have forgotten what presents I got at my family birthday party when I was ten years old, or what the name of that restaurant was where we ate dinner on our first trip but last night in Cape Cod, or what my high school friends and I talked about at Homecoming while we were milling around between dances, but my journals remember. They capture specific versions of me at different moments throughout my life, and specific versions of everyone I encountered who mattered enough to be mentioned within the pages. They retain memories I’ve long since forgotten, and people I’ve lost track of, lost contact with, or seen die.
In retrospect, I’m almost certain that this desire to preserve memories or precious moments in time is a big part of why I started writing fiction. Stories are miniature time capsules, no matter what form they take, and the moments they capture reveal almost as much about the person who’s telling them as they do about the people involved. There’s a reason we tell stories at funerals and talk about people who’ve died. As long as we remember them, they can never be truly gone.
And although I may not remember my grandpa as he was with as much clarity as I’d like, that younger version of me does, and I’m confident she has more than enough stories to satisfy if I’ll only go back and look for them.
Have you ever kept a journal? Is there some other way you keep track of your memories? Let me know in the comments.