Memory

It's interesting what remains in our memory & what doesn't. There doesn't seem to be much logic in what's discarded. I can't remember very much about my childhood or even teenage years. I also can't remember what I did yesterday or what I'm going to do tomorrow. So I have to have strategies. The main one is my mobile phone, which has my current life on it. I have to have reminders about really trivial things like changing the sheets.

I remember the events of today in 2009 really clearly though. What I don't remember, unless it's in my calendar, is the date itself. It's my 54th wedding anniversary & the date my husband died 11 years ago. You would think that the juxtaposition of the two would be forever fixed in my brain.

We had 43 years of marriage. So in many respects I was very lucky. There were highs & lows. There was a lot of shared experience, a lot of joy, but also disagreements & differences in personality. There were difficult times when we had very little money - egg & chips several times a week because it was cheap. There were also times when we realised that our professional lives gave us a very good standard of living. Money & posessions do not make for a good marriage. Love & tolerance do.

So I do try to make a special effort to remember today. Not in a sad way, not grieving any more. But because for 47 years of my life David was the most important thing in my life, the one constant that I could always rely on what ever happened.