I was reading an article out of National Geographic the other day about human memory. There was this lady who could recall the exact detail of every single day of her life from age eight onwards, by date! She could tell you, for instance, what she did on the afternoon of March 8th ten years ago, no matter how insignificant the event was, even if it was just looking out of the window whilst having a Hershey bar, etc. And then, there was this man, in his seventies, who have lost the ability to form new memories (ala Guy Pearce in Memento) due to a disease that had affected his brain; thus he might remember asking a total stranger for his name one minute and then after awhile, forget that he ever asked and ask him again!
Human memory is indeed a miraculous thing. How can we forget the most important facts or details which SHOULD be remembered (like how I totally forgot that the deadline for my essay was due until only a couple of days before) and yet, sometimes we can recall with vivid clarity and ease, the most embarrassing, hurtful or emotionally traumatic events we've ever experienced?
Last saturday was the anniversary of my father's death. I needn't try too hard to think about how that fateful day went, years ago, when I received word from my older brother at the hospital about his sudden passing. I remember, it was the day after I completed my last exam paper (something about ecology) and I had just awoken from a long and deep sleep because I was up all night at the hospital studying while simultaneously looking out for father. I practically reeled from the shock. There are so many other things I could remember too -- Like how I tore the right bottom pocket of my baju kurung. How muddy it was at the cemetery that afternoon. How mild the sun was. Or how everyone laughed in the hearse, after the burial was over, at a joke one of my cousins recounted...
It's almost amazing how life has slipped back into normality since then, as if nothing momentous, or life-changing, had ever happened. I was, myself, out having an outrageously hilarious supper with my friends. But I was, at every second of the night, thinking about father. And nobody knew.
I prayed to God last night; to never let me forget that day. Never let me forget him.
