January 19 1969

[+ purplekow]

That day, 44 years ago, is the day my grandmother died. It is also the day of my life of which I have the clearest recollection. I can remember every action and every word for about a 5 hour period. From the moment I left my cousin's home around the corner at 6:30 until 11:15 when I went to sleep. I was over my cousin's house, around the corner from my house and although we were having fun, I needed to be home by 7:00 because i had invited a friend over and I was pretty excited about his visit. At 6:30 exactly, I left the kitchen of my cousin's home and ran down the steps and continued running up the street. At the corner, I could have turned left or continued straight ahead, and I decided to run diagonally across the street thinking I could gain a few seconds. Up one block a right turn and one more block and a left and across the street. I cut across the lawn of my house and ran up the three steps and as I pulled open the door, I smelled dinner cooking. My parent's were going to a wedding and my mother had made spaghetti and meatballs for my sister and I. I ran in and my mother was in a sequined black dress with a scoop neck and her hair was short and teased up. As I entered the kitchen, the phone rang and my mother answered it on the first ring. I saw heard her gasp and then heard her start to cry. Even now, I can feel my fear that something terrible had happened. She said thank you and hung up the phone and turned to me, pale and a bit shaken and told me my grandmother had died. I looked at the clock. It was 6:42. The rest of the details of the evening are amazingly vivid. It is almost like my regular life was filmed and I have seen the movie dozens of times. I can hear my mother calling my older sister and telling her that she was the last one to see her grandmother alive. I can picture my 11 year old sister crying and hugging her as my father came in and my mother told him that his mother had died. She hugged him as he walked toward her and nothing was said for the five minutes it took for my sister to drive from her home a few blocks away.

 

I bring this up only to point out that there are people who have the unusual ability to recall everything in every day of their life. This four hour period gives me an idea of how intense a life that must be. I have other days which stand out. The day Kennedy was killed. The day the Challenger crashed and of course the Twin Towers. It is clear that intense emotional responses burn memories into our psyche in a way that usually does not happen day to day.

 

Do other posters have a day or a few hours the memory of which exceeds any other memory they possess? Do you, as I do, not only remember the emotions, but feel them time and time again?. Would you want to recall your entire life this way or our you happy with your memories as they are?

[tyro]

Good thread, PK!!

For historical events like the Challenger explosion and 9/11, I can piece together pieces of those days, but not broad swaths of time. Same for memorable days in my personal life.

I would NOT want to recall every moment of my life. I spend too much time in the past already.

T

[bigvalboy]

I often recall with tremendous clarity the emotion of a particular day. Your 1969 date triggered the memory of the day a mud slide buried my parents 'dream home'..It was February and it had been raining for days non-stop. I had gone back up the private drive to bring my parents coffee, as they were trying to clear a small debris flow that had blocked the driveway at the bottom of the hill. As I ran back up the hill and rounded the corner, the house came into site. Right in front of me the whole hill collapsed. In deadly silence and in seconds the house was gone. I was only feet away. Death that day was frighteningly close. The emotion of that day is still so powerful, that I still tear up recalling it. Yes the twin towers, the Northridge Earthquake, the kennedy assination, the loss of my parents, are all burned in my memory. I still visit the cemetary every few weeks, and I cry every time. The emotion so strong, that sometimes decades later it cuts through me. I don't want to forget. I remember the good times as well. Wonderful memories that just stay with me no matter what life is like.

 

I think that it is important to remember all of those events, good and bad. I don't want to ever forget the emotion. It is that sensitivity and emotional connection to the experience that makes us what we are today.

[Rick Munroe]

I still remember the first time I had Derek's cock up my ass and I can still hear his startlingly loud grunts and screams as he shot his load and collapsed on top of me.

[+ purplekow]

I still remember the first time I had Derek's cock up my ass and I can still hear his startlingly loud grunts and screams as he shot his load and collapsed on top of me.

I do not have that same memory but i do remember Derek, loud grunts and coming and somehow his ass was involved. But you must remember it too because you were there but befitting the thread, i bet my recollection is a lot more vivid than yours.

[Samai139]

purplekow--

Your post jarred me a bit and yet on reflection affirms the fact that we humans share much more than we often realise. The date that is "burned" in my memory is 29 Auigust 1949, and like you I can recall many details of that day, from approximately 10:45 to around 5:00 PM. I will not go into details but they are very similar to yours: the death of a grandparent, in my case, a paternal grandfather. Similariites? I can still, 63 years later, recall exactly where I was playing with wooden building blocks and hearing the shouts and confusion outside where he was working with my father and two other sons; the colour of his car sitting in our driveway; the awful, terrifying ride with a family friend to go and get my grandfather. And on and on.

Thank you for sharing a "searing" day from your past and bringing us a little closer together in what we experience.

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

My friends tell me I have an uncanny memory for things we together. In particular, they appreciate my ability to remember things about their milestone events that they don't recall without my commenting about it years later. We were having a conversation about medical history and one in the group mentioned that he had never had a broken bone, and I corrected him by recalling this story.

 

A couple in the group was getting married and a month before the wedding, the best man had flown to town and the bride-to-be picked him up at the airport. During the hour-long drive back to our college town, they were involved in a small auto accident. After filing the necessary police reports and other items, the group met up for our day of activities. A few hours later, the best man commented that his hand was beginning to throb, and would it be OK for us to go to urgent care to have it checked out. So five us are sitting the waiting room, and the best man walks out with his middle finger in a split. Upon seeing it, the bride-to-be blurts out, "You're not wearing THAT in my wedding," before anyone could ask what the diagnosis was. Until the infamous quote, the best man continued to deny the broken finger.

[Diverdan]

I too have many moments indelibly burned into my memory.... the death of my paternal grandfather, the death of my father, the two Kennedy assasinations, the demise of the twin towers, but also some very wonderful memories too.... the first time with a man... my first fb on a trip we made together.. several events from college and graduate school which I will not bore you with here. Other things I only vaguely remember, unless someone prompts me, and then I can almost see a movie real of what happened. The brain is a marvelous thing... thanks for starting this thread, as it has brought many memories back.

[KMEM]

Memories are some of the things that make us human, don't you think? PK- Your mention of 1969 brought forth the memory that my father died that year in February. He was only 51. Cancer. Fortunately I take after my mother's side of the family. All of my father's side passed no later than the early 60's and the men on or before my father at 51. I have outlived all of the male side of my father's family. My mother passed at 92 and I am hopeful for many more years. How "peaceful" and "wonderful" is yet to be determined.

 

Thanks for the thread.

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[+ WilliamM]

I am always surprised that people make such a big deal about the Kennedy Assasssination, the Challenger crash and the events of Sept. 11, 2001. I remember those events, even though I was not living in the U.S. I felt very bad about the people who died and their families but that's it. And it has nothing to do with politics becaue I am a liberal Democrat. I do remember great times in my own life, and greatly prefer to concentrate on that. Perhaps I am just lucky that my parents came from very large families, so death and fatal tragic events were a part of every day life. I learned at a very early age that life has cycles, and it's best to move on...even in tragedy.

[+ Charlie]

I am one of those blessed or cursed with detailed and vivid memories of all sorts of events from my life; if you ask me where I was or what I was doing on any particular date in the past 60 or so years, I can probably tell you, though of course I can tell you more about the dates marked by special events. For instance, like PK, I, too, remember the details of the day my paternal grandmother died, Jan. 31, 1953. I was also standing in the kitchen when my mother was cooking, the phone rang, my mother answered and then began to cry. That scene probably impressed itself on me because it was the first time that someone close to me died, but other traumatic events that were not personal are also imprinted in my memory, like the entire weekend of JFK's death. I also remember the good as well as the bad, such as great sexual experiences, or trips that I enjoyed, and sometimes amaze others who were involved with detailed descriptions that they have totally forgot.

 

I think the worst thing for me would be to lose my memory, as my partner is now doing, and draw a blank about such things. One of my most unnerving experiences was reminiscing with an old and close friend who had Alzheimer's: at one moment he would be recounting the events of an evening we had spent together years before, and the next he wouldn't know who I was. In some sense, we cease to exist when we can't remember, and are not remembered.

[Rick Munroe]

I learned at a very early age that life has cycles, and it's best to move on...even in tragedy.

 

Me, too. Especially being a native New Yorker, I get so tired of being told to "never forget" 9/11. I don't see the need to constantly dwell on it. I moved on a long time ago.

 

I do not have that same memory but i do remember Derek, loud grunts and coming and somehow his ass was involved.

 

Different kind of memory because you're remembering the grunts of a tight hole being stretched by a large object.