Of iPhones and Memories

My husband's iPhone was stolen 5 weeks ago. It was quite an event for him and though it was only a cell phone, it affected a lot of his daily life:

Me: Kurt, do you have my sister's address?
Kurt: Oh shoot! No! It was in my iphone!

Kurt: Christie! Can you find the email list for my YM program?
Me: Don't you have that list? I don't even know where to begin to find them!
Kurt: Well.....it was in my iphone.

Well...you get the picture. But because he is still under contract with AT&T, he will have to pay the full price for a replacement. Or he can wait until Nov 1 when his contract ends and he can get a new iPhone for less money. So for 6 weeks, he has been using a very small cellphone that cost him $19.95. It cannot email nor access the internet. But it can make and receive calls and texts. It does not have any memory to function more than that and other simple calculations.

My mother suffered a heart attack exactly a week ago. The repercussions have been devastating. She woke up in a highly confused state, not knowing her name, what happened or the date. I am having a difficult time sorting out how this happened and I find that I am woefully ill-prepared to handle these changes. She seems to be going in and out of memory. She turns 80 in a few weeks and was in good health and now...snap!--her life has changed. And so have ours. Her memory is severely compromised and now she will have to  learn to build a new life...become a new person.

Memory is such a vital part of one's life and balance. I can't help but see a correlation between Kurt's iphone loss and my mom's loss of memory. Kurt will have to input new data that will aid him in making his work easier. Much pertinent information will be stored in his new  iphone and he will  rely on it because this small contraption can hold enormous amounts of it. But my mom will have to find a way to make the quality of her life as satisfactory as her memory will permit.

Forgetting is such a debilitating and paralyzing enterprise. There is a reason why we are enjoined to remember the past; to remember the lessons wrought by our challenges, trials and errors. And forgetting can also be merciful as we forget the things that hurt us, enslave us or weaken our resolve to do better.

It's been such a challenge to pass through Gethsemane again....to see my mother lose her functions. But in time, I hope to forget the pain and remember only the good that has come from being her daughter.