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Long Term Memory
© 1992, Benjamin Robert Taylor
It's a funny thing, memory. I have an older friend who can't tell you whether or not she had breakfast this morning, but can describe in vivid detail events that took place at the turn of the century, when she was a little girl. They call that "long term memory." Being able to recall what one had for breakfast is similarly designated "short term memory." The reason my friend has lost her short term (and heightened her long term) memory is that she has suffered a stroke. Doctors I know have explained this to be a common effect.
My own Dad suffered a stroke a few years back, and I found myself a bit startled to notice this same effect in him. He and my Mom had been on a cruise in the Caribbean and were stopping over in Miami on the way home. At the time I was living in the Keys, so I drove up to spend the evening with them at the Eden Roc hotel on Miami Beach. Dad has always been thoughtful and generous to a fault, so I wasn't really surprised when he presented me with a gift.
It was a Swiss Army Knife - not a cheap one either, but a genuine Victorinox with plenty of useful, practical tools on it; the kind of thoughtful gift one would expect from a man like my Dad. I was genuinely grateful - and touched as well.
We had a few drinks and shared a nice meal, exchanging gossip about my brother, sisters and various other members of our extended family. By the time the evening drew to a close I was filled with great satisfaction at having been able to spend the time, however brief, with such important people in my life. It was while we were saying our goodbyes, though, that Dad said something so perplexing that I was nearly home before I was able to figure it out.
"Thanks again for the Swiss Army knife," I said as I was leaving. He smiled knowingly and replied, "Well, I knew you needed one."
Isuppose everyone needs a good pocket knife at one time or other, but I was a little confused as to why he seemed so certain that I needed one now. The confusion must have shown on my face, because he took it upon himself to clarify, saying,
"... when I saw it in the shop, I remembered that you lost your other one."
I thought, My poor Dad, he's really out of it. As I kissed my Mom goodbye, though, something began to pull on the strings of my own memory.
As I drove over MacArthur causeway, I began to replay the events of the last few hours in my mind. Mom was unchanged and Dad had been more like his old self than at any other time I had seen him since his stroke. He had been as corny as ever in his sense of humor, innocently flirtatious with our waitress and lucid throughout the evening. He seemed so self-possessed and sure of himself when he said that he remembered my having lost my other pocket knife that I began to believe that perhaps his memory was better than my own.
By the time I stopped for gas in Homestead, I had made a mental list of the location of all my pocket knives. I had another Swiss Army knife - not as nice as this new one, but serviceable - and was sure that it was in the top compartment of my backpack. There was also a Buck folding hunter in the glove box of my car and a tiny stainless steel lockback in my fanny pack. Perplexed, I began to mentally track down every knife I had ever owned.
It wasn't until I was all the way to Big Pine Key that it hit me - and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had indeed lost a pocket knife. It had been more than twenty years earlier, and I never would have remembered it without the soul searching contemplation one can only enjoy on a two hundred mile drive (and even then only with such a catalyst as my Dad's seemingly cryptic statement had been).
When I was seven years old, a pocket knife was more than a useful tool, it was a symbol of maturity - of responsibility; a sign that people respected you enough to believe you weren't going to cut your fingers off. On my seventh birthday the coolest present that I received was - you guessed it - a Swiss Army knife. It even had a lanyard on it so as to prevent loss. I was only seven years old, though, and perhaps not so responsible as I would have liked to believe, for I lost the knife despite the attached lanyard.
The ensuing search for that knife rivaled the quest for the Holy Grail. Daddy and I combed the neighborhood looking for it, leaving no stone unturned, no blade of grass unmolested. We knocked on every door up and down the block, inquiring of all our neighbors as to whether or not they had come across that prized possession. All to no avail.
Having brought up these memories, which had been buried beneath those of nearly thirty years of school and work and adult life, one more memory slipped to the surface. My birthday is November fourth. The knife had been in my possession for only about three weeks before I lost it. Just a couple of weeks later, on Christmas morning, I was exited to discover under the tree a sheathed hunting knife - conspicuously larger and therefore more difficult to lose than a pocket knife, but no less a symbol of my impending manhood.
Dad has always been a thoughtful gift giver; but of all the gifts he has ever given me, the one that remains the most precious to me is not the pocket knife I still cary with me. It is the long term memory. |