Your memory.
It isn’t just the elderly that suffer from memory loss – friends, loved ones, and myself included are a brain cell away from a rousing discussion about the sinking of the Titanic as if it happened yesterday.
Just a few days ago, my partner Ang, looked me straight in the eye and gave me the most convincing and passionate speech of her lifetime – except I had just told her the same thing only a few days prior. She re-tells my own jokes to me saying, ” So and so at work told me the funniest thing yesterday!” Aaaah, yeah… that was me.
Not that I need “props” or anything, but it is a little disturbing to see her doey-eyed face telling me my own jokes as if they were carved from some untouched region of her brain. I imagine her later years, in a nursing home, filled with enormous adventure and wonder as she discovers a half-empty box of paper clips and claims them as her own creation. Later….she will barge through the doors of the dining hall, her muppet arms flailing wildly as she maniacally spouts the details of her discovery. The other residents, taken by surprise, will drop their jello cups in unison and stare, mouths open, in confused wonder.
On that day, paper clips will become a hot commodity among the barely living.
