Strengthen Your Memory
A path to success
Among the countless gifts I received from my family, a good memory is one of them. Like my Irish-born mother, I believe in the power of inherited traits. She would say things like “No wonder she won the mathematics scholarship. Her great-aunt Bridget was good with numbers.” Or in a more somber tone, “His suicide was not surprising. His grandfather Paddy drowned himself in a well.”
My mother not only remembered dates of events she would announce “This day forty years ago, I tasted cranberry sauce for the first time in America.” There were many first-time-in-America recitations, as her arrival after high school was traumatic and painful.
Both my parents grew to love their adopted country, but homesickness was etched into the wallpaper of our home.
When my husband and I were newly married, he was flabbergasted at the things my mother remembered, like the exact time each of her seven children was born while being unsuccessfully knocked out on whatever anesthesia they gave women back then. She caught us in a non-truth years after the utterance, and my husband was impressed and teased me about growing up under that scrutiny. I’m grateful to have a memory like hers.
There are countless ways, my good memory has helped me to communicate with others in my work and private life. What…
