MAKING MEMORIESON THE JOURNEY OF LIFE
Johnny Ireland
“One of the most moving aspects of life is how long the deepest memories stay with us.”
I’m not entirely sure where that quote came from, but I do recall reading it at a very young age. It has stayed with me throughout my entire life.
I was once told by a very concerned doctor that I was “out of the woods”. I look back now with a smile, because I wasn’t ever told that I was in the woods in the first place!
Those four words were sobering to say the least. I was relatively young at the time, but it made me realise that a long life is not guaranteed and that memories should be made at every opportunity.
The journey of life is full of memories, the most precious of which are usually made with our loved ones. Those involving holidays, weddings, births, anniversaries and milestone birthdays are obvious, but when you look back, simple, everyday events are equally precious.
The element of our brain that manages memory has always fascinated me. It has the ability to file away certain ‘folders’ like a dusty old library book just waiting for a chance to be re-opened at some time in the future.
For me it has always been music that takes me back to a place in time that I had forgotten ever existed.
One thing I always wished I had inherited from my wonderful father was his singing voice. ‘The Fields of Athenry’ was his favourite and whenever I hear it, the dusty old library book is re-opened. I see him singing on stage, or at a family party. Sometimes, I’m taken back to my grandmother’s farm in Ireland listening to his voice echoing around the living room at another fabulous family reunion.
Other songs take me straight back to my ten-year-old self riding my bike to the local fairground, the music accompanied by screams coming from the waltzer.
As we age, it’s incredible how our brains can sometimes struggle with short-term memory yet retain the ability to recall a world from decades before.
My wife’s grandmother, at 92 years of age, didn’t know my name. She often thought I was her son (much to my father-in-law’s amusement) yet was able to articulate her life during the war and recall details from her school days and her early working life. She suffered from dementia, a cruel disease which I have witnessed first-hand on more than occasion.
I once looked into the eyes of a dear friend during the last weeks of his life. He couldn’t speak, but I truly believed he knew me. I spoke to him about his early life and smiled as we opened that old library book together. One of his favourite bands was ABBA, and when he heard their 1974 hit, ‘Waterloo’, the twinkle in his eyes told me he remembered.
It’s not only music that triggers memories. The smell of freshly cut grass might remind you of family picnics in the park. The drum of a woodpecker may take you back to a woodland daytrip. The sight of bountiful brambles could bounce you right back to the days of blackberry picking when your fingers were stained with bright purple juice.
Each of these memories is a dusty book, stored in your library (your brain) until it’s retrieved from the shelf. And rediscovering the words in these books is a pleasure, particularly when shared with a loved one.
My final weeks with my father, whilst painful, gave me memories that will remain with me forever. We opened books together that I didn’t even know he had. He thanked me for taking care of him. He didn’t need to. He took care of me when I was small, and it was my time to give back.
We shared memories together but also made new ones.
That’s the journey of life…
