Forgotten Memory

"That's your father," she chuckled. "I took that picture of him after his first day of junior year...1983...he was your age."

Resting in her cushioned mahogany chair, my grandmother peered down at me. She looked tired, and she was tired; however, her smile lessened the impression. We were looking through her dresser. Our intention was to clear out the "rubbish" as my grandmother called it, yet nothing was placed in the trash pile, not the love letters sent from my grandfather, not the leather case filled with baby teeth, and not the "Man Lands on the Moon" newspaper stored from 1969.

"Oh I remember taking that picture...1983 was the year," she laughed again. "That's your father after his first day of junior year...he was your age."

Sighing, I looked at my grandmother and then at the picture. I knew then that the trash pile would remain empty because she was not ridding herself of the past. She was returning to it.

It was the summer of 2010 when my grandmother began to lose her short-term memory. My cousin and I were visiting her for a week, as we did every summer, when we noticed that she was constantly repeating herself. We assumed that her repetition was due to her excitement brought on by our visit, so my cousin and I overlooked it. We could no longer ignore our grandmother's redundancy, however, after she told us:

"You girls have such good memories. I used to remember everything, and now it seems that I am always forgetting..."

As time passed, the abilities of her short-term memory grew weaker. By New Year 2011, my grandmother began to call my house daily to discuss the same electrical bills, the same microwave malfunctions, and the same American Idol episodes over and over and over.

I continued to look at the photograph of my dad. He was wearing a red polo with blue golf shorts and calf-high white socks.

"Oh I took that picture of your father after his first day of school. That was so long ago...1983..." she said for the third time.

I looked up at my grandmother. How could she remember so much from the past, yet forget everything from the last thirty minutes? As we looked through her dresser, she told me each story associated with this letter, or that drawing, yet if I picked up an item that we had already sorted, she would launch into the whole story once again. It was easy to become frustrated with her, but I never lost my patience. I had no right to. She would not understand my irritation, nor would she remember it fifteen minutes later.

"Sometimes I wish I could travel back..." she said as she set down the "Man Lands on the Moon" 1969 newspaper and picked up the photograph of my dad. I watched her finger a worn edge of the picture.

"I loved when the kids went back to school..." my grandmother grinned, "...a new year...watching them grow."

As we continued to "clear out" her dresser, my grandmother recounted story after story and detail after detail. By the end, nothing lay in the trash pile.

My grandmother yawned, "Let's naaahhp."

I placed the photograph of my dad on the keep pile, and then helped her out of the cushioned mahogany chair.

"1983 was when I took that picture of your father," my grandmother said as she nestled down in her bed, “...so long ago.”

"Yes Grandma. I know."