Some years ago, my father came to my aid when I had major jaw surgery. On the way home from the hospital, my face so swollen I couldn't put on my glasses, I steered him home, despite his driving my car in fifth at 40 on the freeway and despite my having given him the directions before my operation. He failed to follow any of them, causing me -- in pain and under the influence of serious drugs -- more distress.
The next day, when a friend came to see me, she told me he was in my back yard, in his white boxers (nothing else), looking for his keys, which I did not know he had lost. The next day, he left -- no warning, just goodbye, and out the door. He remembered something he wanted, perhaps, or something he missed, and had found his keys, so off he went. I never understood how he found his way to the freeway or the way home over the next six hours. That is almost the last thing I remember about him.
I don't know why this episode surfaced today, but I think it has something to do with a quotation friends posted today on Facebook. The post read:
A thoughtful comment on this day from my friend John J. Thatamanil:
The phrase, "Never forget!" is vacuous or dangerous, either meaningless sloganeering or a provocation. The vital question is "Why remember?"
Many, especially in New York, remember 9/11 because they cannot forget; the traumatic grip of memory is severe and unrelenting. What can "Never forget!" mean for those who cannot forget even if they should so choose?
For most, pausing to remember requires an act of deliberation. We who elect to remember must ponder our motivations. Do we remember to nurse grievance, to fuel Islamophobia, and to divide neighbor against neighbor? Or do we perform the work of memory to honor the dead, support the traumatized living, and to recommit ourselves to the difficult and delicate work of healing and reconciliation? Given the enormous power of memory, everything depends on the why.
© Sewanee: The University of the South
I don't know the why. I prefer remembering, but I don't know why I remember most of what I remember. Like standing at the end of the driveway as a child, writing down license tag numbers and the makes and colors of cars. Or stepping over baby rattlesnakes late at night outside a summer camp cabin. Or taking a photograph with a now-deceased friend.
But sometimes I know why I don't want to forget. Like today, for example. Three thousand and more people died in New York, Shankstown, and Washington, D.C., on 9.11.01. I remember that. And I don't want to forget that a classmate's son died that day or that many more thousands of people have been maimed, terrorized, and killed as "collateral damages" during long brutal wars spawned by that day.
I do know why I choose to remember this day: it is the birth day of my first great-niece, a child whose energy and humor and zest for the emotions of living fill me with joy. She and other children are acts of reconciliation and healing in and of themselves. They point the way forward.
I hope that as adults they will know the route and not depend on medicated leaders.
