How Do You Protect The Memories? | Life Love and Hiccups: How Do You Protect The Memories?
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Wednesday 22 January 2014

How Do You Protect The Memories?

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Sometimes when I can't get to sleep at night, I like to lie with my eyes closed and replay memories of special times with Carl and the boys. Their births, their birthdays and their triumphs.

A show reel of precious moments plays through my mind and I find it calming and comforting to know that no matter how crazy life is, no matter how much sleep eludes me, I have those those memories to keep me company and no one can take them from me.

Or can they?

What if someone or something rather can take them from you?

Time, stress, trauma. The one thing they have in common is they have the ability to erode those memories and to shroud them in a fog that makes them difficult to remember clearly.

Like a faded photograph, the basic bones are there, but the little details have faded enough that they have become almost impossible to see and so you forget them.

As I was lying in bed the other night I was thinking about my boys. My beautiful boys. They are growing up so quickly and I am desperate to protect my memories of them as little ones before they too become faded or damaged by time.

It aches so much to know that at least some of the memories of them have been lost in the storms of years gone by. An episode of PND following the birth of my second child and the breakdown following my accident have stolen some of those memories from me and Oh how that kills me inside.

Can you get them back? The memories that is.

Once they have faded so much is there ever hope that they can be what they once were?

I can still see their chubby little limbs, the dribbly smiles and many of the firsts. But I can longer hear their little voices, the way they used to mispronounce words and the sweet baby smell has all but gone.

I can't help but feel that by not remembering all of the little details I have in some way failed those beautiful children of mine.

A mother is supposed to remember all those little things from her children's infancy isn't she?

She is supposed to one day hold her grandchild in her arms and be able to say "Your father used to giggle like that or your father used to fall asleep with his arms in the exact same position.

Will I still be able to remember those things? Will I?

I don't expect you to know the answers to that. I don't really suppose anyone does.

Yesterday we watched some videos of the boys when they were little. Precious moments captured in a way that my brain had failed to do and as I soaked up the images on screen I made a promise to myself that I will make creating memories more of a priority in my waking hours.

I will absorb more of the everyday rather than just rushing through the mundane moments.

I will watch more, listen and feel more.

I will be more present and not let stress or anxiety or ANYTHING distract me from creating those memories.

I will take more videos of my family. Not just my boys but ALL of my family and every year I will sit and watch them in the hope that by seeing them over and over again, it will be like I am insuring them against time or anything else from ever taking them from me.

Do you ever worry about memories fading? What do you do to protect them?
Am I just feeling like this because they seem to be growing up so quickly?