I am terrible at remembering names. I have tried all of the tricks to be able to do that, but nope, not for me. Thank goodness for name tags!

But I remember so many details about so many people, even if I have forgotten their names. I could list them all, but one stands out — the nurse’s aide who held my hand in the emergency room after I was in a terrible car accident when I was 19.

Is it necessary for me to remember this? What if I forgot? Would it matter?

Thinking about memory suddenly became important when my

husband, Sky, was diagnosed with dementia in 2016. I had known something wasn’t quite right with him for a few years. He denied anything was wrong, but eventually agreed to be tested: probable early stage Alzheimer’s. We were stunned.

As we processed this devastating news, Sky said he assumed he would eventually forget his family, but he was mostly afraid that he would forget his Self.

So we read books about memory. It turns out that there are several kinds of memory — ranging from memories of how to do things (ride a bike, tie our shoes) to memories of things that happened to us (however incomplete those memories are) to memories of factual information (Where is the bathroom? What is the capitol of Mali?).

Then Sky wrote:

As the attacks on our intellects and memory continue, we feared changing into people neither we nor our loved ones would value spending time with.  What is left for us if the glue of memory no longer holds our selves together?

As time went on, Sky gradually lost the ability— the memory — of how to do many things. What clothes to wear. How to button buttons or zip zippers. How to read. How to get into bed. How to pull up the covers.

Did he still know his Self?

Sky spent his last year in a memory care facility. He walked the corridors, interacting with other residents and the staff, singing songs, making jokes. Sky was one of those people that had a song lyric for every occasion. Me? I can’t remember song lyrics, never mind who starred in what movie.

When he was dying, he was still singing, and he seemed happy. He told me I was beautiful, and he told me the end was near.

He may not have remembered his Self, but I sure did. It was all there, in its blazing glory.

Is it only memory that is the glue that holds our selves together?

I think there is a fourth kind of memory — emotional memory. We all have negative emotional memories, but we all have positive emotional memories as well.

I was so, so grateful for the nurse’s aide who soothed me, scared and in pain, as I waited in a cold, stark ER. I can still feel her love and care fifty years later.

And when I remember Sky these days, a year after his death, of course I remember all the things we did together.  But mostly I remember the love we shared.

And what could be more important?

What about you? What memories are important for you to remember? Are they factual? Emotional? How would it feel to not remember?