Memories are strange beasts. Separating them from the human existence creates another condition – those who cannot remember. Dementia and Alzheimer are destructive diseases, and their impact is felt throughout a community, even more on the individual families who go through it. However, it is the sense of loss of the person themselves due to their own lack of awareness which can be even more painful to live through.

My memories live strongly with me. My mind recreates a feeling with more life than my words can promise you; which is why the Bush played such a key role in it. I laid out my feelings in the post before, a sort of love letter to a fixture in my childhood. This episode, I wanted to showcase where the divergences in memory currents happen – as they differ from every human brain which encounters an event. Even when all these currents were within the same family.

My eldest sister lives quite distant from me. For most of my childhood, she was the adult who was rarely home to visit. Her perspective on home has a mosaic of pain and love which is not to be quaintly defined by even her little sister. As adulthood let us both into the same world, I asked her about her thoughts concerning our childhood, specifically revolving around the bush. She said that in your mind, things from your pasts tend to “stick out” because they represent something to you, For me, the bush meant a world of wonder and difference. For her it was an escape from a reality of caring for upwards of 4 siblings at any time and an elderly grandmother. It was a place where the neighbors would come over, bringing over exotic snacks and stories of their respective schools. While not outright rebellion it was freedom and individualistic – words undefined beforehand.

My older brother had very similar memories to my elder sister, yet for him it was more a place to test strength and skills. It was a place to relax, to dream alone, to catch privacy from the world in which he was thrust. He recalls literally jumping into the branches if only for a few seconds to get the smell of cedar, before church in the morning or a doctor’s visit for our grandma. He was an older sibling as well – so his responsibilities were vital to the running of the house. Mowing lawns, raking leaves, cleaning water out of our Michigan basement – and the bush brought relief. Solace. His life is a much fuller one now – marriage, life in general, post-military – but his memory of the bush is something which also invoked friends coming over and filling it. It was a retreat and yet also a place to test one’s strength. There had been a storm where the bush had been struck by lightning. One of her heavy limbs fell, causing a hole through which you could now see the sunset. This surprised my brother, who had jumped the limbs day in and day out – yet one storm altered the face of a familiar place forever.

The second sister of mine has so much to say she deserves her own book. Her memory of the bush is something akin to mine, yet also blended with ‘the older ones.’ She reminded me of how the bush was the feature we would tell people to look for when giving directions to our house, Evergreens could be found in nearly every front lawn on our street, but not so as any house would be nearly lost behind them. Her observations were related to the color, the smell, the feeling of the ‘leaves.’ The bark bit the fingers, but the leaves were soft as butter – while a layer of them lay brown and somehow still soft on the ground. Sunlight found its way into the cove of green, and so did life. Decay was not in the bush’s DNA. My sister watched as the world of the elder siblings spun into Volvo-tires and pavement, and another era of childhood began on the front porch. I wonder how much both our eyes are still focusing on those broken steps from between the branches.

The last sibling I brought into this whirlwind had a genuinely unique importance in his life. Though he does remember the evergreen fondly, it did not paint itself in his mind in terms of endearment. It was there, but at the point of time where I was almost obsessing over it, he had moved on to another place. It was not the front yard generally but rather, the driveway. He recalls hours that we spent on rocky-asphalt, bouncing half-full basketballs into an old hoop which towered over our heads; his thoughts of how we would get chunks out of the edges – eroding due to rain and Northern winters – to be used in our Real People and ‘chemistry’ games. His memory was not about the bush as much as it was about how the driveway was set in our lives. The day my parents repaved the driveway – the first time in over 40 years of residing at their home – is a day that my brother realized just how important the driveway had been The change of scene from being so familiar – it was not about maintenance or better aesthetic, or even better for the house in general. All those my brother would agree with. Yet, in all that good, is the loss of what was.

There in lies a great truth. The loss of memory means the tearing of reality. It is a scary moment relived over and over, or an emotionless field where nothing ‘sticks.’ I do not need to opine on this topic – only to state how important remembrance is, how cherished family history can be, but also how poisoned it can become. How changes are affected depend on what people do in the changes they find themselves. this is not necessarily a story about losing memories – that is a tale for another day. This story is about having them – even when the reality was different.

What is it to say after all these words? The love we siblings have for home, for the intimate details of an every day journey between the sun and the moon, I think is mirrored in others views on old school grounds, old play grounds turned into shopping marts and hospitals. Yet, these are things deemed outside of your control in an easy fashion – governments and communities decide together on differences. Even if you choose not to attend the meetings, they usually occur. Changes to a property alive still in all of our minds is more personal. While the decision involved you the children to some extent – it is our parents house, They did what they thought was right. It is not a ‘wrong’ choice which allows my momma to sit on her new front porch. It is not a bad thing that my father is able to walk on a smooth driveway free of holes his children may or may not have encouraged (I am sorry Dad – the asphalt made excellent ink though). Both of my parents are managing health concerns which are rapidly changing the way they did things before. Regardless of the endearments of some things, renovation is necessary. These changes cast the whole in a shadow – the 2d rendering of an impression in our mind became a model with features and movement. It became a model of the relationships woven through the recollections, the memories, the people. Change is not always a bad thing – it is what we do with it which matters to any ending. Is that not what growth is all about?

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Karena, Jiles, Donielle, and Caleb for putting up with my rambling questions, terrible internet at the time of interview, and the love and support they have given to this little episode.