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Keeping souveniers is a human trait that has remained in existence ever since mankind discovered their propensity of establishing an emotional attachment to some article or object which creates an instant memory of some person or place that was of significance in one’s prior experiences. A Pharos would have been entombed with precious artefacts and even some of the vilest murderers have kept mementoes of their victims to remind them of their brutal acts!
Most of the population will place significant importance of being able to remember the good times we have had, the beautiful people we have met, the wonderful places we travelled to and the most exciting and most fulfilling things we ever did. Indeed, perhaps the one illness or debilitating condition most of us fear contracting above all others is Alzheimer’s. It is as though we each value the ability to ‘remember the past’ more than we ‘fear any terminal illness of the future.’
Indeed, give a person the ability to write their own epitaph and they will jump at the opportunity of writing something truly memorable. Whom among us do not like the idea of being fondly remembered when we are dead. I imagine that we’d all like to leave a legacy of some kind or another that enables one’s memory of us to live on when we no longer do.
I must confess, however, that whenever I watch some antique's programme on the television and see a person who is prepared to auction off some item that carries significant meaning to their background history, it simply leaves me baffled and I immediately think, ‘How disrespectful to sell your grandfather’s war medals etc’.
I have a number of precious items, but the only material things I truly treasure today are old photographs of loved ones and significant others in my life. My greatest souveniers, however, are without a doubt, my memories. Let’s hope that they never fade with old age or disappear from my emotional memory bank. My memories, however old are capable of reproducing past images that evoke present emotions, every bit as real as though it was ‘happening now' instead of having ‘happened then'.
One of the most beautiful things I have ever read was about a son who continued to visit his old mother in a nursing home twice weekly without fail. The old woman had contracted Alzheimers' seven years earlier. Initially, during the earlier stages of her illness, his mother would always recognise her son whenever he visited her. Two years into her condition, there were some days when she knew her son and other days when she didn't. For the last five years, however, as far as his mother was concerned, it could have been her milkman visiting her instead of her son as she could no longer recognise either.
When another family member, (a nephew who never visited after the old woman had entered the later stages of the illness) once asked, 'Why do you still visit her when she doesn't know who you are and cannot remember?" The woman's son replied, 'Because I remember who she was and meant to me!"
Love and peace Bill xxx