A Forgotten World

Sunday.

I found a letter my first love gave me years ago when we were 14 years old. Touching the discolored paper, I remembered smiling brighter than the sunlight, hearing my own heartbeat, and telling myself I would never forget that euphoria. Yet, thirty years later, even on my worst day when I need something to console my soul, I can’t remember keeping the letter. After all, he was one of many affairs in my life, not to mention that I now have a job and two children to take care of. How can I remember this?

Monday.

Sam forgot a deadline and our boss blamed all of us. In our after-work drinking session, like all workers in the world, Sam accused the boss of lacking sympathy. “I would act differently if I were him,” he said. “We all know I was sick the whole week. How could I have remembered the task?” Everyone agreed.

Tuesday.

Our boss forgot to submit a report. It was Sam’s turn to laugh. We all felt satisfied in silence, even after we found out that his son was in the hospital the night before. Words are spoken to be forgotten. How can we remember what we said yesterday?

Thursday.

I forgot to pick up my child from school. I nagged myself, “You are a terrible mother. You let your child drain in waiting. You leave your own kids behind.”When I saw the teacher, I intended to explain “I’m sorry, I forgot” but to my astonishment, she told me that all parents were busy with bread-and-butter issues and trillions of other things on their minds. “How can they remember?” she asked. I was about to yell back “It’s not okay to forget” only to realize that I had forgotten to write about Wednesday.

Friday.

My kids were supposed to visit their grandmom, but they didn’t. “We forgot. We got loads of homework to do. How can we remember it?” I know they lied, but who am I to teach them? I couldn’t even rewrite what I had for breakfast on Wednesday. The more I tried to recall Wednesday, the more it faded away.

Saturday.

I visited mom. The fact that I was forgetting things like an Alzheimer patient reminded me of my Alzheimer mom. We might forget many faces and memories in our lives but Alzheimer patients forget them all. Maybe I reached out to her for some compassion. I brought a card with me, slowly approached her, and carefully held her hand.

“Mẹ ơi, do you remember this card I gave you on your 40th birthday?”

It was a dumb question. Asking an Alzheimer patient about their ability to summon memories from so many years ago. But just when I was about to tell her how she got it, her eyes turn red and the winkles started moving as she said,

How can I forget?

Cover photo by Nguyên Vũ.