The Importance of Memory

I am away on a retreat for the weekend. I brought my laptop thinking there would be WiFi but alas the lodge has forsaken me. Which is a problem on many fronts, cellular service is sketchy here and typing is much slower on my iPhone. If I hadn't committed to Momalom's Five for Ten (you'll have to find the links in my last posts) I wouldn't bother. I'd simply tuck myself into bed and write this post that has been brewing in my head on Monday. But committed I am.

I don't often write about my work. I rarely tell the stories of my patients. There are many reasons but mostly confidentiality and I like my job. Today's topic of memory brought fourth a myriad of emotions. The story which follows is based on a true story. Please note the disclaimer "based", it is a story of many of my patients and a story that needs to be told but in the interest of anonymity it is also fiction.

As a Respiratory Therapist I often think about the breath of life. How important breathing is to our everyday existence. Such a peaceful, calm, natural thing to do: just breathing. Most of the time that is, for some it becomes a daily struggle, hour by hour, minute by minute. These are the people I am called upon to help. My patients make impressions upon me, solid whole life impressions. I think of an elderly frail but still tall man, I think of the family he must have, the careers he may have pursued, the babies he must of held and sometimes I even think of his childhood, the parents who adored him now long gone. I think of the games he must have played and the spirit of his young heart. It makes it easier and harder to do my job, easier to treat my patients as whole people and harder to see them suffer.

In many of my patients, secondary to breathing is memory loss. Some of them are as clear today as they were many years ago and some are lost in their own childhoods, or in the earlier years of their marriage. Many are frightened, some are angry and confused but most are not. Most are simply carrying on living, forgetting every step of the way. Mr. Happy was somewhere in between. When I met him we chatted about his physical health. He was not particularly short of breath but he did require some supplemental oxygen. He was reading the newspaper and soaking up the details. He wanted to talk with me about something he had read. It was of interest to him because it pertained to his line of work. He told me about the business he had started and how it had grown. He told me that his nephew had carried on the business as he had no sons of his own, only daughters. He told me about the size of the company based on the physical space they inhabited and he told me the number of employees that they currently had. And then he told me how he had spent his winters in Arizona since retiring from the business.

He was astute and articulate. I could have stayed all day talking with him. He told me he had no regrets about the life he had lived save one. Here he paused to look at the date on the newspaper. And then he told me about his wife who he adored. His one regret was that back in November they got separated somehow in the city of Phoenix and he ended up back in Edmonton. He was sure she was still in Phoenix and he hoped that she was having a good life. It was the most unusual story for a ninety year old man and so I left him and contacted the social worker. The social worker informed me that his wife had passed away five years ago but that he could never remember and each time they visited him they reminded him that she had passed only to watch him break down, burdened with sudden sadness time and time again.

So how important is memory? Was my patient better of believing that he had lost his wife in Arizona or finding out she had died again and again. I don't know the answer. Some of my most demented patients are the happiest people, reliving their childhoods or the days after the birth of their first child. Do we need to remember? Do we need to remember the life that has passed us by? And is our happiness dependant on it? I may never know.

And before I leave you, a reminder that I wrote this post on my iPhone with no 3G network. I imagine it will take forever to upload and I apologize in advance for the lack of spellcheck.