Apparently, I have a memory for shit.
I just hung up the phone with my brother. He said, “Yeah, I remember when that doctor tried to give dad morphine.”
“What? You were there?”
“Yeah, I was there.”
“You weren’t back in L.A. that day?”
“No, I totally remember that. They gave him that bracelet that said morphine on it.”
I have no recollection of him being there.
Not a shred. Not even when he reminded me he was there, in the OR, arguing about the morphine.
Is he sure? Maybe he was at lunch. If he was there, where was mom?
Why do I remember being alone in the waiting room?
He must have been at lunch.
Am I remembering the right day? Maybe the OR situation was on First Monday, before he flew to L.A. Maybe I cracked on First Monday.
If you asked the three of us to write down what happened, you’d have no idea we were talking about the same man.
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That’s the funny thing about memory, especially in families. They say that all the kids in a family will generally have a totally different version of how they grew up–even of the exact same events–because of who they are and how they percieve things.
My sister and I do this all the time, and it’s like, “Are we sure we’re related? Cuz clearly you didn’t actually grow up in the same house as me.”
Always makes me wonder then what the truth is, and I guess it’s just in there, somewhere, in between all the versions.
Maybe your brother was there, but in your memory he wasn’t, because your pain felt so unique and big that you felt isolated and alone, and therefore, remembered it that way.
I think that would make sense when you’re dealing with something this huge.
Just a theory.
In any case, thanks for bleeding on the page for us.
Yeah, midwest., I like the way you put that.