I Remember

There is more power and meaning in the words "I remember" than you probably realize. I can clearly recall being very young, maybe elementary school age, and being impressed and touched when someone said to me "I remember" some fact about me. It takes interest to learn something about a person, and then of course you have to care enough to store that information and be able to recall it later on.

This power is more obvious in a new relationship. If a boyfriend gives you a movie, says "I remember you said you wanted this," you're happy that he paid attention and remembered. If a friend takes you to a new restaurant, says "I remember you like this type of food," it's also impressive.

As time goes on, you don't learn as many new facts about people. My husband knows my favorite color is blue, that I'm a vegetarian, that I love rocky road ice cream. So while it touches me if he brings me something blue, makes me a meatless meal, or eats rocky road with me, it's not quite the same as it was before. It's paying attention to new things--remembering that I have a meeting at work that I'm dreading, asking how my book club went--that impress me now.

I've been hearing "I remember" a lot lately. Some of it is "I remember the day after your daughter died, you were surrounded by people helping with the baby because we were all afraid you might collapse." Other people have repeated back to me things I've told them, some of the ideas I've been sorting through about free will and why bad things happen.

The strangest thing, in a way, is people telling me things they remember me doing years ago. One friend told me she remembered when I told her I was pregnant with my first baby. She had experienced miscarriages and I felt awful for her. I didn't want her to find out from someone else, as though as I was hiding the pregnancy, so I made it a point to tell her. She remembers that.

Another friend, someone I went to high school with, recently emailed and told me a lot of his good memories of growing up involve me. He seems concerned about how I'm doing, wants to check up on me. Just that simple phrase, expressing that he remembers me, really showed me he cares.

My point? I wish everyone would find something they care enough to pay attention to and commit to memory. I feel there's less and less of this as technology takes over. We can be in touch with 200 Facebook friends, but how much do you really know about them?