Something with my memory

                SOMETHING WITH MY MEMORY ...
 
 



Everyone complains of their memory, and nobody complains of their judgment.
— Benjamin Franklin
The other day, I was thinking about why I’ve been forgetting simple things lately. I would be watching an old Russian movie, see my favorite actor, but wouldn’t be able to recall their name! Oh my God! Something like this happened to me recently.
I was talking with a friend on Skype, discussing books that we had read, and retelling the most interesting and memorable parts. Satisfied with the conversation, we both smiled at each other.
She asks: “Did you read the story ‘The Female Uprising’ by Dina Rubina?” And I replied that I would try to read it soon and wrote down the name. We finished our nice conversation, I looked in my notes, and saw that I had written down the title of the story, but not the author, counting on my memory! What should I do?
And then I remembered that a few years ago I had published an e-newsletter for my family, in which I had included one of the stories of this writer. Well, I thought, surely I would find her name there. And guess, my dear reader, what I had to do.
You would think that it would be easy to find this edition among the 24 that I’d published over 2 years (each of which had a considerable number of pages)! I spent two hours rereading all of them, but, I’ll be damned, I couldn’t find the story! Frustrated and tired, I walked away from the computer, no longer hoping to remember the name of the writer.
And what do you think happened? My goodness—it was as if I had been enlightened! The woman’s name was Dina Rubina! And I, stupidly, had spent so much time searching for it—although I also got some satisfaction from rereading these many newsletters; it fascinated me to imagine what I was like several years ago, picking such interesting material! So, this time wasn’t wasted after all! And I read this story.
Everyone’s memory is different. We must remember the relatives who have already left us, and about the friends and acquaintances who are already gone. As the writer says: “Memories must be honest, memories must be kind.” But memory lapses can happen to almost anyone.
Here is something else that happened to me recently. Unfortunately, as elderly people, we have to take various medications, and we must remember what time of day we must take each pill. One of our relatives does this very carefully and uses a schedule—admirable! I tell her: “Now, that’s how you care for yourself!”
I’m not so lucky! Here’s what happened. I got ready to take my pill for blood pressure—I put it on the table and reached for a glass of water. I drank it down with my glass of water, and then saw the pill on the table again—as if nothing had happened! That is, I had washed down medicine that I hadn’t taken! What a horror!
“Oh no,” I think to myself, “your memory is getting worse, Raisa!” I had to take the pill again! By the way, the same thing happened a few days later! Oh, memory, memory.
Soon after, Sasha and his son Danya came to visit me. I told about this story… and what do you think happened?
My boys smiled a little, and the grandson said: “Grandma, this happens not only to you. In my family, we sometimes open the refrigerator and stand for a while, thinking to ourselves, ‘what did we need, again?’ And we stand there for a long time until we finally remember what it was we needed. Grandma, don’t be upset, memory changes—everyone forgets things from time to time!”
So my venerable age, it turns out, has nothing to do with it!








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