SHAPE OF MY MEMORIES

From birth till death, memories are made to create conversations between the past and the present. Events happening in our lives will bring joy, and some will be sad. Unfortunately, memories can not be erased. From childhood to our old age, they will shape and control our future. There are things in my life, they will refresh old scripts, as such, a touch, a look, maybe a smell,- of a photo, a picture, a letter, a scar in my body, or a perfume - senses will bring them alive for a second before they disappear in the mist of my brain.

When I remember someone I loved, I am not only recalling the person but also meeting with him/her inside me. I can transform my thoughts into the new time frame. I can't edit or modify it as I please; what has happened never changes, and I live with it.

Most of the time, my memories are triggered by impulses from my other parts of the body. The talks I had with my father, the cup of tea shared with mum, the hug I gave my son after our football team scored each match are the MOMENTS that were once habits, now sacred. A song can bring joy or make me sad. It is my brain that brings back memories, showing that things are within me. I believe relationships with everything in my life are in my possession, and over time, become my memories. In that respect, my memories are built on MY FAITH. The faith is there to lead my life. It makes the relationships and memories; sometimes I control it, but most of the time it happens regardless.

At my age, I reached a point where I described my experiences as my memories. People call it "The school of life," where you are your own teacher. It teaches how to gain from your experiences. The truth is, without me realising, I created a Database where all events are collected. The following memory will be a connection with my son, though he has passed away, he is still alive and living in me.

There is an afterlife; my loved one might be dead, but the moments I spent with him were recorded. A physical disappearance of a loved one creates a spiritual connection for us to communicate with the past. Especially, when we shared the different types but the same faith in Cancer.

I had lived with cancer long enough to realise that what happened in my body did not make any difference to my or my son's soul. It was the same for my son; he had to put up with it. An unwelcome visitor to our body had created pain. Pain became mutual friends to complain about, but we ignored its presence. Memories of those days are still fresh. They remind me of the happiness and jokes we shared, rather than the miserable days that left their tracks in my brain.

After he died, my relationship with my son did not end. What once existed in reality now lived in silence. Physical presence became spiritual. I still talk to him, not aloud, but in private; it is a language of remembrance. His response is in small ways: a Michael Jackson song playing on the radio / a sudden message appears on Facebook, "today, a picture of us 3 years ago on holiday," a memory surfacing when I did not expect it. These are moments of proof that, spiritually, he is with me at the time. It is a reminder that love is an energy that refuses extinction.

My faith has been living with an illness I can't get rid of. Its presence can not be seen or touched. Sometimes, I wake up before dawn, and I sense all of my connections around me." Family, friends, even a version of myself when things were normal" had met together quietly in the room. Memorizing all these is very difficult to describe, but maybe it is called a dream. In this case, my heart's way of thinking is different from what my mind says.

The older I get, the more I realize that MEMORY is not just looking back; it is also a light towards the future. It reminds me of who I loved, what I have survived, and why I must keep going. It is guidance to live my life another day. A gift of memory is carried in every breath we take, which takes us to the future, that even in loss, we are never truly without what we have loved.