Even the best minds have to contend with it – the malady of not being able to precisely recall faces, names and dates that hits all those once priding themselves on having had a proverbial ‘elephant’s memory’. The ‘forgetful’ stage seems to kick in with a strange gender bias. Men once they’re retired, tend to forget (or appear to) simplest errands & important family functions/dates while ladies hardly forget any event (past or present) despite their advanced years, except where they kept their mobiles, glasses, medicines& bills. It’s God’s way of making all senior spouses help each other in finding their stuff & keeping themselves socially relevant !FB too is doing a yeoman service by reminding us to wish friends on their birthdays !
Recently, at a reunion meet we got talking about how class-fellows were getting along. A friend described someone who’s first name he tried but couldn’t recall & asked me if I remembered. Equally vague I replied ‘I can’t recall the face, but the surname seems familiar’. We tried to jog our memories on other blokes in school, not active on social media, but couldn’t make much headway ! Back in our younger days, we used to giggle when elderly relatives would ask “Ye ta kothay aache?’, translated from Bengali meant ‘Where’s he/that thing ?’ leaving us to figure out what they wanted. With age, it’s our turn to turn a bit foggy and to struggle with the recesses of the brain to retrieve a name, year or place when providing information to others.
The well-known fact is that we have in-built like a computer, a long-term memory which miraculously retains the details of significant past events and also a short-term one for mundane matters that get deleted fast. It could be that our tired minds can’t handle so much data inputs. To cite my example, relatives/friends tell me that I can relate quaint incidents of our childhood that they’ve forgotten. Also, I don’t need to refer to lyrics of hundreds of old songs while singing them-yet many things happened in last two decades that have slowly faded away to me.
Experts claim that a weakened memory is just a sign of aging and not treatable, though they suggest ways to keep one mentally & intellectually active. Writers, artists, actors, trainers, coaches & of course politicians improve with age like ‘fine wine’ ! However, ordinary people too devise ways to manage ‘memory lapses’. My process for years has been to make ‘to-do lists’ on daily basis and store in files, my stories, pins & passwords. ‘Association’ of thoughts helps us recall like someone’s birthday comes a week before Christmas. Spouses are best versions of ‘Google’, who keep us updated on everything. That reminds today is very important date. It’s her birthday & how can I forget that !
Happy Birthday Tandra – Time slipped by but my love for you is always on schedule !
Working on Living 