THE FORGETTING SICKNESS
AND THE REMEMBERING RECOVERY
Lyn and Suzanne had this thing where they kept forgetting.
They would wake up in the morning and forget about the smell of a lake in the woods at dawn in the autumn. They would forget about being held by another human being. They would forget the feeling of getting really excited about something coming up, something big like Christmas, or something small like waiting for dinner to be served.
Or they would forget the sound of geese going north in the Spring. They would forget the taste of coffee in the morning when you wake up, and how the shower feels when you get in and it starts waking you up, and you push the bar of soap over you and your skin starts to tingle.
They forgot all sorts of things, like love and friends and hope. They forgot hearing all the traffic, joking with other people on the street.
Then they went to a nice place where doctors helped them to remember. And slowly now they are starting to remember.
But as they remember all these beautiful things, they also begin to remember the pain and the trauma and the difficulties, which is why they forgot the beautiful things in the first place.
But that is life. The pain AND the beauty, the good AND the bad.
And so we hang onto the beauty and the love and the happiness, we hang on strong, and remember it.
Remember these good things.
Remember to remember.