My first memory is of my late cousin, Praneil.
I was likely two, and my family was visiting my late Oma and Opa at their apartment just outside of Steveston, B.C. Myself, Praneil, and my cousins Rekha, Sunil, Rupa, and Rakhee were walking back to the apartment after a cousins’ walk into the village.
Praneil had a habit of throwing random stuff high up in the air and then dashing around to make sure he could catch it. It could be anything: sunglasses, a football, me — but that day he was tossing his car keys up in the air and catching them.
He got a bit overconfident and tossed his keys really high. They proceeded to fall through the boardwalk slats and splash into the Fraser River, sinking to the depths of Steveston Harbour.
Naturally, we were all shocked, and because Praneil knew that he would be in big trouble, we all jokingly harped on him a bit. Praneil and Sunil didn’t tell their mom, my aunt, about this until years later.
I’m sure those keys are still there at the bottom of the river.
Memories are the purest form of experience and identity. They shape us into who we are and contribute to our sense of self.
They’re the connection to all versions of ourselves, and when we look back, memories don’t just connect us with a specific moment in time, but also to feelings, thoughts, and sometimes even pain.
They don’t live only in our psyche, though. They’re kept alive through countless mediums: photos, songs, home videos… There’s always something there to remind us and transport us back to a specific moment in time of joy, sorrow, or nostalgia.
It allows people, even those who have passed away, to live forever. They’re kept alive through those around us and the memories we share. There’s a comfort that lies in knowing that through memory, our loved ones aren’t truly gone as long as there’s something, or someone, who reminds us of them.
The emotional connection to memory truly shows how profound our past can be and how strong its power to evoke is.
I’ve always wished that we had the ability to replay or view our memories again and relive those moments for just a little while. There are many things I’d like to see again in detail, from a third-person point of view, just to reflect, and many I’d like to see just to prove that I’m right about something (can’t hurt, right?).
However, there’s a fragile beauty that comes with memory.
As we get older, memories fade, and our recollection of people, places, and events stuck in time, gets lost. While memories help solidify our past, they’re also like fragile glass that can shatter, especially if someone remembers the same thing we do but in a different way. We can, unintentionally, alter our perception of a shared memory or experience, molding them to meet another’s recollection of the same event and in some way destroying our own.
Memory shapes us into who we are; through them, we learn and grow — it is essential. It serves as a bridge between the past, present, and future.
Memory is no more than a personal vault where moments of our lives are locked away.