I awoke this morning thinking of a promise I was forced to make a number of years ago — a promise that I would never, ever tell someone in the family, as far as I can recall, a very important something I cannot for the life of me remember. I only remember I was nearly threatened with my life if I told whatever it was to whomever was not supposed to know.
Well, obviously the secret was safe with me. I do remember getting the “evil eye” as I was ordered to darn near swear on a stack of Bibles I would never repeat or reveal the secret to the innocent recipient who, to this day, as far as I know, has gone on their merry way completely oblivious to the big secret or plan or plot or whatever it was.
My curiosity is aroused, and I’m wondering if I should stir up the hornet’s nest and go back to the person who made me promise — practically under threat of my own demise — never to tell whatever it was I was to keep to myself. I wonder if they even remember. I’m willing to bet they would deny ever saying such a thing in the first place, and here I’ve been worrying myself sick over a well-kept, forgotten promise.
Years ago my best friend and I had a falling out over something that split us apart for a number of years. When that period of our life comes up, she quickly changes the subject. Obviously she remembers the incident and it still hurts to think about it. Me? I got nothin’. Not a clue. And let’s just leave it at that. Fading memory can be a good thing.
I came across my high school diary recently — there’s a good way to stir up old memories — and found something clearly meant to be hidden from prying eyes. The thing was, I wrote it in shorthand, and I’ll be darned if even I can read what I wrote. I’m thinking a key word is either “love” or “hate,” since I was a very dramatic young thing. There was no in-between. I’m just not sure to whom those feelings were directed. My parents? My boyfriend? My best friend? Those were the most important people in my life at that time. Incidental people might have been teachers, cousins or neighbors. It doesn’t matter. That was a couple of lifetimes ago, and most of those players are long gone.
A friend, even older than me, has a mind like a steel trap. If a person or event is brought up, she can recite dates and times to the finest detail. She remembers birthdays of not only all her close friends and relatives, but her neighbors and, I’m pretty sure, their children. I have to ask every year if my son-in-law’s birthday is the day before or the day after Ol’ Bill’s. She’ll remind me.
The “telephone game” we all learned in elementary school is a good way to teach kids the power of memory and how it can be distorted. It taught us the value of accurate information and how repeating a comment can be twisted from the original to something unrecognizable. I faintly remember sitting in a small circle in a classroom. It may have been a Sunday School class. The leader whispered a simple phrase into the ear of the person next to her. That person then whispered the same phrase to the person next to them, and so on around the circle of maybe eight or 10, until the last person, who was to repeat out loud what was whispered to them. Usually what came out at the end was nearly unrecognizable compared with how it began, thus making the point against gossip and how words get distorted in the repetition. I wonder how the telephone game would work with my Red Hat ladies.
When my daughter was little, she used to talk about her “rememberies.” I like that word. It connotes pleasant recollections of events and the people involved.
