Memory is the first thing to Go

               I find it very funny how people can have the same experience together with someone but yet have totally different memories about it. I have experienced this with multiple people and each time it never ceases to amaze me that the other person is telling the story completely wrong, and actually believes that what they are saying actually happened. There can only be one true story people...and I believe that yours is not it. But my story on the other hand is always true....at least according to my brain it is.

              It happens with my wife and I alot. I have even seen this happen an hour after the event happened. My wife is telling the story differently than what actually happened. I hear her telling this story over the phone to her mother...and it bothers me to the point where I have to interject and let her know what really happened. Now I am not claiming that I have the best memory in the world...but I am pretty good at remembering what happened an hour ago. So let me tell you one story told in two different memories...mine and my wife's.

              My wife and I were at Timberlys resting place the day after her funeral. We were making sure the dirt on top was even and we were picking up the rocks and smoothing out the ground. My wife and I were sitting down on the ground and she was working on one end and I was on the other. She picks up a clump of hard dirt and is breaking it apart when she finds this key. She was like..."Oh my God, look what I just found". I could tell she was about to cry. (Now here is where the discrepancy comes in ) But anyways ...I said..."Looks like Timber sent you a key to heaven so you have a Free Ride now" (I said that.....but according to Kim she said it.....like I said,... she was about to cry...so do you think she would say that when she was about to cry?) I think Not !!  And besides...I know what I said. When we arrived home...Kim calls her mom as she often does and tells her what she found. Only she tells it the way she remembers it, with her saying that to me.Huh? Did I just hear her say that she told me that?

You may think that this is such a petty thing....and in the scope of all things important...It is .Most people would just let it go ... However I cant just let it go when I know its not right. (Its a curse I think) If only I could do that sometimes...just walk away and keep my mouth shut...it would make those moments go much more smoother. (I did say IF) I am not that nice...or patient. I call a spade a spade. Its not that I think that I own the statement ....its just the fact that she is not the one who said it.

 I can even admit when I am wrong on that rare occasion when that happens and I also understand that there is a slight possibility that my brain is playing tricks on me and I am the one who is not remembering things the exactly the way that they happened. As a intelligent human being I must know that it is a possibility....a very slight one....but a possibility non the less. But it has happened alot...so I have come to the conclusion that there is no way that I could be wrong that many times.

Here's another instance:

In my last blog I talked about my brother Dale and how we were always together. What I didnt tell you was that when I was young, I also had a small speech problem...I couldnt say my Rs very well. Yeah I got made fun of sometimes by the other kids...but in their defense...they were just being kids. I would just wun fwum them...oops...I was reverting there...but you get the picture right? Well, Dale had told this story to my daughter and I had to laugh because his version of how it was is not quite true. His version goes like this:
"Yeah your dad had a really bad speech impediment and nobody knew what he said anytime he talked. They would always look at me and ask ...What did he just say? So I always had to interpret for  him. I even had a hard time understanding him myself sometimes.
  Really ?....So thats how you remember it huh?  I know I did have a hard time with my Rs but cmon man... I could say all the other letters of the alphabet pretty good.  Unless I was explaining to people how to "wewind the camawa"...I am pretty sure that everyone understood me. I did have a speech teacher that helped me to pronounce my Rs by the time I was in the 4th grade. I mean...cmon Dale...You were not in my grade to speak for me so I am pretty sure  I could speak good enough for people to understand me without the interpreter. In the back of my mind I cant  help but wonder if maybe I really was the one that nobody understood...I mean, how would I know that for a fact? Its kind of like when your siblings tell you that your adopted...your mind starts to wonder a bit and then you start to realize that  you don't really look like anyone else in your family and then you start believing it.

                    So all this makes me wonder if we don't alter our memories to fit the way we think. Kim thought that what I said was cool and she said to herself..."I should have said that" and Poof...it goes in her memory as if she said it. Maybe Dale just wanted to be a Big Brother and talk for me as a child and poof it goes in his memory like that too. Yeah...I am pretty sure that's the way it must work.