innovation living

Memory is a funny thing. When I was a little girl I had a great aunt who faithfully sent me birthday and Christmas cards and gifts. She lived in England and so I didn't see her in person, but I did speak to her on the phone once in awhile. My parents told me that I had once met her when she came to Canada for a visit; I was a year old.

They described her as a tall woman, much taller than my grandmother, her sister, who was under five feet. They said she had brown curly hair, much like Grandma. When I heard this in my teens, I suddenly remembered her face. The more I thought about her, the more I could recall specific details. In particular I remembered a flowered dress. I asked my mother if my aunt had worn a flowered dress when I met her and my mother said she couldn't remember for sure, but that it was quite possible. That was enough for me. My memory of my lovely great Auntie N wearing her flowered dress and holding me came clearer and clearer. I held onto that memory.

Years later, in my late teens, I was babysitting a neighbourhood child one afternoon. We sat before the television set together for an episode of Sesame Street. I was flabbergasted when the woman I remembered, and had convinced myself was my great Auntie N. appeared on the screen. She wasn't my Auntie at all. I had somehow transplanted this woman - and her flowered dress! - into my memory and made her mine.

The clarity with which I had recalled this woman, this woman who was actually an actress on a children's television show I'd enjoyed as a little girl, was crystal clear. There was no doubt. I would have passed a polygraph test.

This is why I know that sometimes memories, even the clearest of memories, are sometimes flawed.


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