Memory

Memory is a funny thing. We tell ourselves it works like a video camera, recording faithfully the events of our lives, but it doesn't. Memory is a far more sophisticated tool than that. Memory cleverly contorts our realities to make the meaning we need in the moment. It emphasizes the learnings we need most and diminishes the bits that cannot help us to survive. Sometimes memory tells us just what we want to know, sometimes it forces us to see the thing we wish could not be true.  

If you had asked me two months ago what I remembered of Ryan's childhood, Id' have told you a story of struggle, his and mine. I'd have told you how Ryan's illness gradually revealed itself in words that made no sense, in actions that looked like vitality though they were really his way of coping with its opposite, in tantrums and violent rage that looked like the willfulness they were and didn't speak clearly of the pain driving them. If you'd asked me two months ago I would have remembered the doctors that tried to help him and the ones who simply dismissed my knowledge of my son and told me he was fine.  I'd have remembered the diets and therapies and supplements that offered hope and sometimes helped and maybe didn't and mostly we weren't ever sure because none of them helped enough. Two months ago I'd have told the story of how desperately I tried to help my son and how those efforts fell short and how I was doing all I could do and far less than I wanted to as my deeply depressed son refused to engage more and more of the time. Memory is a funny thing and today my memory has no need to seek solutions, no clever tricks for keeping me engaged in the problem of Ryan's health. Today my memories of my son are spurred not by a pained life playing out in front of my but by the photos of a life now gone. The photos are kind. They tell the story I need now, of a joyful and rich childhood. It is a very different story and no less true than the other. 

Ryan was a child who ran and flipped and spun. He jumped in the waves of beaches in Florida, Washington, Hawaii and Uruguay. He built towers  and cars with his sister. He explored the forests of Atlanta and built bridges and dams in its creeks with his friends and fellow homeschoolers. He played jokes and games with his cousins and plotted to collect all of the WWF stuffed animals. He petted and loved any furry creature to come along. And he laughed with them all.  His sense of humor was always a part of him which may be why he learned to read on Calvin and Hobbes books, sitting in a recliner with his dad who loved them too.  He laughed far more than he cried. His as a childhood full of adventures and explorations. He never hiked a trail without finding a new paths, and he hiked a LOT of trails.  His strategy in board games was impressive to all, including the adults who gather for the board game conventions he loved as a quiet blonde 10-year-old. He quickly gained a reputation for winning. 

We traveled the country and some of the world doing the simple and amazing things that brought us joy. We sought out children's museums and he explored every room. We tried out train travel, even with a sleeper car. We visited grandparents where he could play in the snow - boy did he love the speed of a good sled run, not to mention the baby blue snow pants he wouldn't take off except to wash them.  I don't know how we could have fit more living into the life he had. 

There may be lessons yet to learn from the memories of pain. They may somehow be able to help another child or another mother. I will hold those memories for that and for myself when I need to remember why his life ended as it did, but today I'm grateful that memory is wise enough to be kind.

I will revel in the images I chose to record over all those years, thousands of pictures of happy times. I will remember the simple joy of watching him run.