I'm sure I'm forgetting something...

When I was younger I used to get very upset with my parents for forgetting things like food that I disliked, the dates of school events or the year I was born. I would like to formally and publicly apologize to my parents before I forget that I should do it.

Age is a funny thing. As you get older and experience the same issue as your parents you began to understand things that to younger minds seem foreign and obscure. Calling my children by the wrong names is a daily occurrence in my house but when I was a child I couldn’t for the life of me understand why my father couldn’t get such a simple thing correct. Sometimes now I can’t even remember my own name.

When I was in the fifth grade I was bullied so badly in art class one day that when we got back to our regular room I just grabbed my coat and left. I walked home and sat on our front steps. For some reason my father had come early from work that day and thought I was home for lunch. In those days you could still go home for lunch. It wasn’t even close to my lunch time and I was so upset that he didn’t remember that. I can’t even recall what I packed my daughter for lunch this morning let alone what time she eats at school.

My mind is packed with thoughts like, did I remember to buy milk? Do I have to pick up Joey today? Did I pay the mortgage? Those are just some of the household issues rattling around in my brain at any given moment. Then there’s work and social (if I’m lucky) plus family obligations to recollect and act on.

As life goes on we are called upon to remember more and more and then even more. Our minds are so full of data that I wish I could just download it all! For a parent there aren’t enough electronic devices in the world to keep it all straight. Every year I understand my parent’s inabilities a little more because I’m living through the same situations and realizing they are not inabilities, just the stresses of everyday life.

My father not wanting to play with me after work sometimes had nothing to do with me, it was because he was exhausted. My mother not remembering when my band concert was had nothing to do with me, it was because she had two other children and a job and her brain was full of more pressing matters right at that moment.

Children of course, after a certain age, remember every word you say. This is dangerous when you promise them something and then don’t remember it an hour later. They tend to get upset and think you lack common sense and intelligence for forgetting these simple things because they should be the center of your universe and don’t you ever forget it, but you probably will. This explains why you suddenly get smarter when they turn twenty-five. At that point they are just starting to become you.

Children view adulthood as a fantastic life of carefree fun, staying up late and having endless money. It’s almost a shame they have to grow up and have that image shattered into a billion pieces.

You age and you grow to realize that you remember and embrace the important things. When you first held them the day they were born, their first day of kindergarten, their driver’s test and countless memories in between. So you called them by the wrong names occasionally when they were kids, so you forgot an important date or two or twenty-seven, so you forgot to pick them up from school one day, the important thing is that you never forgot to love them. That’s what they will remember.

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