The Lost Ocean

My name is Ivy Thomas. I am a Memory Keeper, as was my mother before me, and her mother before her. We are guardians of forgotten memories. She told me it was a gift passed from one generation to another, that it ran in our family as far back as the earliest centuries. You were either born with this gift, or you weren’t, but it had skipped very few generations. She also told me it was a privilege to guard what was precious to people when they could no longer guard it themselves.

I used to feel that privilege was not the right word. Sometimes it feels like a bittersweet miracle, impossible and stunning and sad all at once. Most of the time it feels more like a burden — like a small and soft sack of flour resting on my shoulders. There are no sharp edges that dig into my skin, and its weight is only vaguely noticeable at first, but after a while I find it sets my back to aching.

Other times, although rarely, the sack of flour does grow sharp edges, like teeth that cut through my flesh and make me bleed, and I cry and wish that I had been born normal. But, as I said, that is only rarely. People don’t often forget the terrible things that happen to them.

I remember when memories first came to me for keeping. They would come while I slept, their sounds and images, feelings and smells mixing with the obscure details of my ordinary dreams. It wasn’t until I repeated some of these “dreams” to my mother that she realised the family gift hadn’t skipped past me.

One night, as I lay sleeping snugly, a different sort of memory interrupted my dreaming. At first, it came in brief flashes: a muffled crying, the smell of sweat, old wallpaper. Followed by larger fragments: a man with a mustache, his hand on her chest, foul breath, dirty sheets, the locked door, silent panic. I had woken screaming and my mother had rushed into my room. She wrapped me tightly in her arms and the musky scent of her perfume enveloped me. ‘I know. I know, darling, I know.’ She had whispered over and over as she rocked me back and forth and her tears fell onto my hair. I was only seven when that memory came to me. As I got older, I thought about the girl whose life that memory belonged to. While she had repressed the details of what happened, I knew she probably still felt the pain. I wished I could hold her like my mother held me and whisper 'I know. You’re not alone. I carry your pain too.'

After a few years, I stopped seeing memories only at night. Now sounds and images and whole scenes come to me all day, as I’m passing people in the streets, shopping, working. Most forgotten memories that flitter through my mind are insignificant. Small details like passwords, song titles, items for the shopping list. But then there are the special kind too, precious things that are easily forgotten with enough time. The smell of grandpa’s aftershave, a beloved childhood toy, kind words, the smile of a favourite teacher. One morning, as I was on the train to work a memory came to me of a father watching his little boy dig holes in the sunshine of the backyard. I felt his love, the earth-shattering love of a father for his son. It was so big, so deep, so full of ache, and sorrow, and hope, and pride, and fear. Those are the bittersweet, miraculous moments. Sweet because my heart expands with the love or joy of another, bitter because then I remember that that memory is now gone from them.

A few months ago I had really started aching under the weight of the flour sack. It was the kind of ache I felt in the very core of my heart - it was full of surprise and loss. I had been out walking one autumn evening, the sun was soft in its setting and the breeze was cool. Pieces of a memory had started to flicker in my mind. A familiar schoolyard. A large tree — English Oak. The sound of teenagers laughing and talking. As the pieces grew clearer I stopped dead in my tracks — I knew this place. In the memory was a girl with long, chocolate brown hair. She was standing under the oak tree and turning to walk away but the owner of the memory, a boy, called out her name and she turned back toward him — blue eyes, freckles, a shy smile — the girl was me.

It was Sam Parson’s memory. We were seventeen and I remembered every detail of the moment he had now forgotten. We were talking before our next classes, the air was cool but the sun was warm on my neck and the dappled light under the oak tree shifted and fluttered with the breeze. As I turned to walk away to my class he called my name. I turned around expecting him to say something, but instead, he just stood there smiling, his hazel eyes a steadfast gaze on me.

I adored Sam, but I never told him, and he never told me.

He started forgetting more after that evening in autumn. Every time he lost another memory of me, and I found it, the flour sack grew heavier, the ache deeper still. It was inevitable, I would be remembering him, while he was forgetting me.

The aching had grown almost unbearable during those months until one day not long ago. I had been volunteering at a nursing home. I would go in each Saturday afternoon just to keep company with some of the residents who didn’t have their families.

Mrs. Laurie was a cheery old widow and she and I took to each other like fire to dry wood. We would drink weak tea from styrofoam cups and play cards while she regaled me with stories from her life. One dreary afternoon while we were sipping our tea, Mrs. Laurie was chatting away about her late husband. As one story began its roll into the next she stammered and then stopped altogether. After a short pause she looked at me a little startled, and then chuckling sadly she said, ‘Well dear, for the life of me I can’t remember what I was about to tell you!'

But I already knew. Her memory had made its way into my mind as she stammered. A pot bubbling on the stove, the smell of raw pasta, an old yellow kitchen, the sound of giggling. She danced with her husband, swaying side to side, the feeling of his brown knit cardigan under her left hand, his breath warm on her neck as he sang love songs in her ear. In her memory I could feel her unending love for him, the pure happiness of her life spent with him.

It was only then that the penny dropped for me. I heard my mother’s voice in my head, words she had always said but I had never really heard. ‘Sometimes time will steal from people what they don’t want to lose, but so long as we exist those things won’t be lost forever.'

The father who watched his boy dig holes in the sunshine didn't love him any less because he couldn't remember that moment. Time didn't diminish Mrs Laurie's love for her husband, even if it stole her memories of him. Sometimes time will steal from people what they don't want to lose.

There were those who were better off having lost their memories, like the girl whose awful memory had come to me when I was only seven. The more I thought about it, the more I could take a sort of solace in providing an invisible shoulder to lean on, carrying the burden of another’s memory for them, bearing witness to their pain, and hoping they somehow knew they were not alone in it. Strange as it was, I started to feel that even in the darkness of it, I could accept serving others in that way.

Then there were those like Mrs. Laurie. Those who clung desperately to a life full of beautiful moments, but couldn’t hold them all in the end. I wish I could tell those people that while they are forgetting, I am remembering. That I can see what was precious to them then, even if they can’t see it now. So I have decided that it is indeed my privilege to watch their memories for them, a great big lost ocean of memories. Gone, but not entirely forgotten. Lost from them, but found by me.