#95 Mnemosyne
I have a good memory. The Greek goddess Mnemosyne seems to like me. This has been a curse and a blessing through all my life.
It has been a curse because I can’t forget the bad things. That makes me naturally resentful. Don’t get me talking about that teacher in fourth grade in primary school who smirked at the newspaper article I brought for an assignment in 1982. Janne taught me how to deal with that just by being as forgiving as she was.
It is also a blessing. My memory keeps bringing back details about Janne since the day I met her: her heavy suitcase when she came to Bremen, the aroma of her favorite Hugo Boss perfume then, her bluish contact lenses the day we met, her excitement at learning the German word to add credit into her mobile account (aufladen). For many of those memories, I have photos to back them up.
I still forgot day-to-day stuff. Janne would get annoyed every time I wouldn’t remember where I placed my mobile. She did her part when she didn’t recall in which jacket she had left the car keys. Those moments were just ripe opportunities to tease each other.
I have read that one of the biggest fears of bereaved people is to forget. I am feeling that fear myself which is not a familiar emotion. Sometimes I don’t remember something about Janne on my first attempt and that hits me hard.
It hits me when I find gaps in my photographic record too. That perfect trip to Rimini? I have no photos. Our first memorable trip to Dublin when I came for an interview? Those pictures are gone somehow. I’m less structured than people think about storing them.
Then there are records I want to let go. I installed security cameras in the house. They keep a record of the last three months before being erased. When Janne died, I was about to save all of that, but then I decided to let them be. I don’t want to see her decline in video. It is already hard to forget anyway.
What I know is that with every memory, grief will come along. Every time I remember, I will miss Janne.
Stephen Colbert once interviewed Keanu Reeves and asked him, “what do you think happens when we die, Keanu Reeves?” His answer was, “I know that the ones who love us will miss us”.
