Grateful to Remember

I am grateful to remember. I am grateful for sound memory; that I can recall the good times to cheer me up; that I can recall the bad times to know what went wrong; that I can learn from my mistakes. I am thankful to remember who I was, am, and want to be; that I can maintain my life’s narrative with all its notes and photos, peaks and troughs, and successes and failures. I ask what is Man without his capacity to remember, just an ape of instinct? Not with the intent to diminish the importance of the present, I cannot be bound to that dimension of time alone. If I can’t recollect the stories of my past, then there is no hope to write the story of my future. How can I become a better man without recognizing the errors of my ways, built upon the evidence my memory collects as I undoubtedly miss the mark?

I am grateful to remember, that recollection comes easy. Even more simply, I am grateful I can recall how to eat, drive, write, read, love, etc. There likely will come a day when my memory begins to deteriorate. But until then, I cherish my neat and organized diary of myself, the logbook filled with instructions on how to live, and well at that.

I am grateful to remember.