Now I know. My memories of certain incidents from childhood are real and not, according to my siblings, a figment of my imagination. At least, they are real to me and I have not been telling lies. You can blame it on my memory that has played a trick on me.
For example, there’s the time when a man knocked on our door and his appearance was so frightening that my brother, who chose to open the door, was scared out of his wits and ran inside to hide himself. He was sure that the man was out to grab him. I have heard this so many times that I firmly believed I was there.
In my mind’s eye, I can see my brother’s face and the fear in his eyes. Whenever, in all innocence, I say that I remember that day, I am always told that I wasn’t anywhere on the scene and, in any case, I was too young to have memories!
My siblings claim to have photographic memories and say they can remember so much of the past. For instance, they say they were only two years old but recall that moment in time when they were punished for something so trivial that they have been traumatised ever since. They describe, in chilling detail, where exactly they were at any given time, the reactions of parents, their emotions, the arrangement of rooms in the big bungalows we lived in and the type of furniture. You name it, they know it.
The younger ones in the family accepted their versions as gospel truth. Most of the older children’s recollections are a catalogue of crime and punishment. The crimes were those committed by insensitive parents and the suffering these siblings underwent was due to an inability to understand their tender minds. The young ones saw this as a sadistic compression of their blithe spirits.
Taking firm root
Now we read that memories can deceive us and that alternative versions of reality (not lies) are embedded in our memory bank. So, we cannot be accused of telling lies. What we are doing is reconstructing the past when recall fails us. There have even been studies where false memories are planted in the minds of subjects, where they take firm root. Soon, they are recounting these as their own experience.
So, I have begun questioning the reality of what my siblings have repeated over the years. Isn’t it possible that all that they say they’ve been through is but the result of reading too many books and incorporating incidents from them into their own lives?
I have always had my doubts over the veracity of their accounts. However, they have put up a united front when charged with having an overactive imagination. They have said that if it weren’t true, how is that both can remember the incident in such detail.
When the parents are asked to confirm, they have wisely said they cannot remember. That’s when several pairs of accusing eyes are turned on the adults as the back-up they call on lets them down. They fight back, dredging up other memories and ask for confirmation of the details they have presented. If there is no denying that some of their memories are intact and cannot be faulted, the accusation in their eyes turns into triumph. They believe they have proved their point with their powerful sense of recall.
But, if the parents refuse to let them have the last word, they come back with the rejoinder that it is cruel on the part of adults to rob them of precious childhood memories.
Now that I know better, I forgive them for all they said because I know they weren’t conscious of the fact that they were mere victims of a shift in memory. Of course, in their case, it was a tectonic shift.
