Full circle, imperfect circle and the power of memory.
The Weekly Witness by Rebecca Mack - Edition 5
Its a personal one this week - thank God for the paywall!
I took my dad to the G.P. for a memory test this week. The day after my daughter Emma’s, graduation. My parents live up north and Emma was graduating up there. As a fully paid-up member of the ‘sandwich generation’ I took the opportunity to kill the bird of cognition and the bird of congratulations with one all reaching stone.
‘What is the date today, Sir?’, asked the rather lovely GP who for once didn’t look like a teenager in scrubs.
God. Never mind my octogenarian dad. I was about to fail the memory test! July the something, I think, it’s been a long month, a long summer, well a long year.
‘July 17th’, my dad announced. ‘I know that because it was Emma’s birthday a few days ago’.
Sharp as a tack.
Not so much Mr Mack and our other daughter Imogen when I recounted the question to them in the car on the way home.
‘July 16th’ Mr Mack announced confidently, but incorrectly.
‘Isn’t it August?’ added Imogen.
Like I say, it’s been a long summer.
Getting the day wrong, or even the month could be attributed to the summer fatigue we have all been feeling since the heatwave kicked in or the discombobulation of Imogen finishing her GCSES in June, throwing the normal summer calendar into disarray.
I have no such excuse for the year confusing me. This week I found myself catapulted back to 1992. The year I lost my mind.
