"Examine me, O God, and know my mind; probe me and know my thoughts …." – Psalm 139
This past week my wife and I took a trip, returning to Montana in order to attend our church’s annual clergy conference at Camp Marshall, located on the beautiful shores of Flathead Lake. I estimated the drive would take longer than I would want to do in one day in the car (I still quantify distances by travel time rather than miles), so we made a relatively leisurely trip from our home in the Skagit Valley (pronounced Ska-jit), stopping in Spokane to visit a long-time friend (who is now in memory care).
Memory. What is it? How does it work? How can life-long friends who have known each other for some six decades suddenly become strangers?
I often joke about my own memory lapses. Who hasn’t gotten to mid-morning and forgotten what they’d just had for breakfast? Who hasn’t stopped in the middle of a flight of stairs and wondered where they were headed, whether they were on their way up or down, or what they were going to do when they got to where they were going? We all experience memory lapses.
We can joke about it, because we’ve all experienced it to one degree or another. Wait, didn’t I just say that? I often quip that I haven’t gained weight, but rather that my brain is full and has simply added extra storage space to my gut.
Seriously though, I find that I struggle more to find words that were once right at my fingertips. I’ll stop typing, trying to find the word I was looking for; it is frustrating, because I know it’s a word that was always immediately at hand, but now I’ve got to go looking for it. Don’t tell anyone, but it is embarrassing for a wordsmith to use a search engine to find another word for “joke” (quip) or “writer” (wordsmith).
In normal conversation, I don’t mind repeating myself on occasion, and I know I’ve got verbal tics that make their way into conversations, sermons, and columns. But as a writer, I don’t like to see the same words used multiple times in a paragraph, so I’m constantly trying to change things up. It was once a snap. Now it's more slow [sic] (bad grammar here is intentional. I couldn’t think of a metaphorical antonym for “snap”).
I have to remind myself that the brain is an organ, while cognition, memory, reason, and other such things are related to how the brain works, functions, or malfunctions. Remind; What a wonderful way of saying “to bring to mind again.” When we’re young, the processes are quick and nimble. As we age, our cognitive skills slow down. I was never much of a multi-tasker, but today I can forget many things at once!
I suspect some of the issues we face as we age have to do with organic deterioration. I’m no expert, but I suspect the brain atrophies over time, as does the rest of the body. We do what we can do to keep our minds active, and that’s all we can do. Some are better than others at eating right, exercising regularly, reading and doing puzzles. But when the brain breaks down and stops working properly, there’s not much we can do except to thank God we have people and places that can help us make it through those dark days.
I don’t know what pathology lies behind our life-long friend’s inability to recognize those she loves (loved?) and who love her. There is a definite grief and sadness that attends that reality. It’s a death her body hasn’t caught up to yet, but we have, so we grieve.
The psalmist tells us we are conceived in the mind of God, and in our declining days, God continues to carry us in, to, and through dark places. We don’t know where our journey will take us, but we can find peace in the loving hands of the One whose journey will never end. Perhaps life as we know it is simply the first leg of that long journey we have with God, whose memory is perfect. That’s something I hope to never forget here in this, our valley.
Keith Axberg writes on matters concerning life and faith. Author of: Who the Blazes is Jesus? Good News for a Vulgar World (available through Amazon in Print and e-book)
