Death, joy, grief, regret, anguish: Why do these memories keep haunting us?

Memories, how they keep lingering. The good ones we cherish, the painful ones keep cropping up the more we try to push them down, and the regretful ones keep haunting us. But without memories, life loses its meaning. We take you down a different memory lane…

My Amma (mum) comes alive in a tide of memories

By Shyam A. Krishna, Senior Associate Editor

I wasn’t mamma’s boy. That was my kid brother. Since I was the firstborn, I carried my mother’s expectations, although not all went the way she wanted. It didn’t matter; her love and support were unwavering.

Losing my mother was a huge blow, much more than I would care to admit. It wasn’t a surprise, given the late diagnosis of her cancer. Yet, when she died, I was lost in a warren of grief and confusion. I struggled until a friend, who underwent a similar trauma, helped me tide over the biggest tragedy in my life.

That was seven years ago. I still miss her. The loss still hurts, but it pains much less. Time has helped to heal.

Today, my mother comes alive in a flood of memories. Triggered mainly by occasions that would have her signature. “This is what Amma would have said…would have done,” I would say. Her smile, warmth and scolding were all expressions of love. All of them are memories.

Some memories are more vivid than others. Bathing and feeding me when my arm was fractured. Plying me with black coffee and snacks during my marathon study session on the eve of exams. Trips to temples and bus ride to her brother’s house, I was her constant companion while father was away. Weddings, funerals and birthdays, we didn’t miss much.

There were no overt displays of affection. My sister, brother and I knew that she loved us to bits. How did we know? We just felt it. In her actions, in her words and her silence. She was at her best in the kitchen, where she worked her magic.

I don’t know a better cook. A million recipes in her head, Amma would whip up sumptuous feasts with all the traditional curries. Almost every day, hot savouries would accompany the evening tea, and sweets too, if she’s in the mood. And mother would watch us eat with relish.

Amma is no longer at her usual spot, reading a newspaper on a reclining chair. Or watching a television serial. But she’s there. A quiet presence.

I feel it every time I walk into the house.

That lingering happy tune in my mind

By Imran Malik, Assistant Editor

Whenever I hear that happy tune of the ice-cream van as it slowly pulls into the street, it cheers me up instantly. Now, this may seem rather childish to you and I know what you are probably thinking... “Is he 3?” No. I am 43, however that cheerful melody accompanied by the sight of that vehicle perched by the curb waiting for parents to get treats for their kids always puts a smile on my face. It brings back happy memories. I was 7 when I saw this magical van for the first time and if I close my eyes I can recall vivid details about that day as if I am still there right now…

It’s a warm summer’s day here in West London, I’m wearing my favourite blue t-shirt on which I have carefully drawn the Everton Football Club badge using a black ink pen (genuine football kits were far too expensive and so we would make our own), I have my little Hot Wheels Pontiac Trans Am toy car in my pocket, and my brother, sister and I are playing hide and seek in the alley. I’m supposed to be looking for them, but I am suddenly distracted by an enchanting jingle coming from the top of the street. I go to investigate as they both come out of their brilliant hiding spots (one is in the bush and the other in a tight gap between the shed and the wall). This colourful van stops right next to me and the large window on the side slides open. Out pops the smiling face of a lady and she is selling ice cream. My sister rushes past with a fist full of coins and the three of us are now enjoying delicious frozen pops and slushies…

Those were happy days. Back then, the only worry I had was getting my school homework done on time. And well, there was that bigger boy in class who always liked to make fun of my stammer. But, that was it. Those were the best days. They seemed endless. The sun was always shining. We just lived for fun. Now though, there is all manner of worries in life and they often weigh me down. I tend to go into my shell and rarely speak much about them until I feel better. That’s just how I am. But I’ve made the tune of the ice-cream van my alarm on my phone and when the clock hits 7 am, I don’t pull the pillow over my face. Instead, I leap out of bed and look out of the window with a smile. I may not see that truck, but that little melody brings back all those beautiful memories that I hold so dear. They are sweeter than all the ice creams in the world.

Lack of empathy or misinformed, the painful memory

By Manoj Nair, Business Editor

Memories can be quite deceptive. On the one side, there are the Instagram-able ones, all fresh-faced and with the right image and mood filters in place.

Then there are the memories that you try suppressing, just because it makes you feel less of a person, and infinitely lower than what your vision of you as a decent human being should have been. The latter is what I am grappling with through the years, for the simple reason that I could never accept mental health as a ‘real’ problem. For me – I am talking about a good 30 years in the past – issues of the mind were borne out of the other person not trying enough. There was a clear lack of empathy on my part for any form of mental illness.

All of this idiocy and lack of acute awareness of another’s suffering came to a head when the one suffering was a longstanding friend. We had landed in Dubai more or less at the same time after going through the school and college years. He got himself a choice job in software development, and life, by all means, was looking up. That’s when he first started talking about job worries and the inability to focus. Into his third year at the company, one of the best employers in town, he was pulled up by line managers for failure to deliver on time. He kept harking the same issues of anxieties and sleepless nights.

I look back and see myself dismissing all his talk as babble: where he might have wanted a patient hearing, all that I could provide was a cursory nod. He could have consulted someone, but my suggestion was that he should desist because it would cast a stigma on the employer. I have to confess that he listened to my ‘advice’, and the situation deteriorated. He lost the job shortly and was practically unemployable for the next two years. Finally, he headed back to India, sought the right consultant and cured himself of all his anxieties. It was a long process, but he did it.

If his problems had ended with the job loss, I would have gotten off relatively lightly. That wasn’t, however, the end of it. Divorce and a full-blown depression followed, and yet I kept dismissing his misfortunes as self-inflicted. By his refusal to ‘get a grip on himself’, as I kept repeating to him.

My memories of that person and that phase would have been better if I had said: “I am sorry that I couldn’t understand your problem…” But ego is such that all issues are someone else’s problems, never mine.

But my ‘friendship’ was another fallout from him getting cured, as he realised that he was better off without my negativity around. So, 20 plus years ended, disastrously. The only thing I have are the memories of how hopelessly I managed a situation and a friendship: just because I was misinformed. And woefully lacking in empathy.

My mind is a tease, but a smart programmer too

By Sharmila Dhal, UAE Editor

My mind is a big tease. It is also a smart programmer. It is wired in such a way that it automatically files things that I want, consciously or subconsciously, and simply bins out the rest.

Imagine if this were not the case. I would be tripping on my exceeded memory limits all the time, my server crashing with all the doom and gloom around and my system irreversibly shutting down.

Thank the good lord, my memory fails me when it comes to my most painful moments - whether it is the loss of my parents, a health emergency concerning a dear one or even an argument or misunderstanding I had with someone.

Don’t get me wrong. Of course, I can tell you when my parents died or why a family member was rushed to the hospital; I can even describe them as harrowing experiences. But ask me for the little details, and I will draw a blank.

The same goes for any unpleasant experience. A silly misunderstanding I had with a dear friend many years ago is a case in point. It had bothered me then. But today, I can only tell you very broadly what it was about. For the life of me, I cannot remember the nitty-gritty or come up with a she-said-that-and-I-said-this kind of chronicle.

Over the years, this mechanism has held me in good stead. It gives me more room to retain the good memories and cherish them; enables me to move on from sticky situations with no bitterness at all; and yes, it allows me to make amends too where necessary.

Indeed, my programmer has mastered the art of filtering my past.

How I wish it could do the same with the future – that would save me a lot of fretting.

You can only replace grief with hope, and good memories

By Justin Varghese, Your Money Editor

I had a picture-perfect childhood. Growing up, I lived a fairly complaint-free life with my family of four. You could say we were an unusually happy bunch, whose unapologetic squeals of laughter would even erupt in a fairly quiet public place. Goes without saying, we were pretty shamelessly joyful in the comfort of our homes as well. We made a ruckus wherever we went, be it at our regular food joint, or in our family car.

I particularly remember an indoor basketball match between me, my sister and my mother. Bear in mind, this was not your run-of-the-mill ball game, because not only did we bother to learn the sport’s rules, nor did we possess the basic skill set to even dribble the ball. It was just us running around, chasing each other around the room, all the while screaming, howling and hysterically laughing when one of us fell.

This was just one of the good memories I treasured deeply. There were other instances that took me to my ‘happy place’. One instance was when I would play video games with my mum (who didn’t care whether she knew how to play or not). There was also this one time I shaved off one of my eyebrows and like any 8-year-old, I went to face my mother fearing a scolding – only to have her and the rest of the family erupt in laughter looking at my brow-less face.

I honestly had it all. My confidence to live gleefully was sky-high. Nothing could ever get me down, or so I thought.

My mother’s unexpected passing some years ago, seamlessly catapulted our family into a period of joyless existence. The tetherless soulful laughs were replaced with deafening gutting silences. We each tried to grieve in our way, but as there was never any real guidebook to deal with grief over the loss of a pivotal family member, we each went our way. Although the initial year or so was comparatively easier to deal with, the years that followed got only harder, way harder. I slowly began filling this inexplicable void with multiple debilitating addictions and the more I did, I only found myself distancing myself from anything that had to do with the family. Not to mention, these quick-fix solutions only made things worse, and not long after, the dreaded demon of depression came a-knocking.

What was my way out of this deep, dark and dingy hole? Coming to terms with the fact that there can never be a true replacement for the one you have forever lost, is one. The other is letting the good memories consciously or willfully replace the dark thoughts, slowly and gradually. Why? Because you can only replace grief with hope, and good memories certainly did that: give hope. It still does, and that keeps me going.

The songs never stop playing in my mind

By Sadiq Shaban, Opinion Editor

Rafi came to our household in the late 70s. He was all of 16 and his father thought Rafi could stay in the big town, pick up a few social graces and make some money. My folks took a liking for the boy, whose real name was Ramzan.

When my mum asked him about his likes, he surprisingly said singing. The sole radio in his village belonged to a rich man, where his father used to work and Ramzan would listen to it sometimes (when he accompanied his father) with veneration. He must have quietly begun rehearsing. Thereafter his father brought him to the town.

He helped mum, watering flower pots, tidying up the kitchen and other little chores. Also, he would sing to her. Songs of the village, Kashmiri folk songs and most enthusiastically songs of the popular playback singer Mohammad Rafi.

Soon mum had a new name for Ramzan: Rafi. Hence, everyone in our home, workers in our orchards, our neighbours and relatives started to call him Rafi. He took it well. The re-christening made him even perkier with a satirical sense of humour.

Years later, I was born and Rafi loved me dearly. He would become a horse for me and sing for me. New songs he picked up from our Texla Black and White TV (It would take five minutes to start). Since TV was still a rarity in those days, Rafi would often narrate, with much melodrama, the plot of last night’s movie to eager folks in the local bakery.

I left Kashmir when I was 20, but kept in touch with him. A few years ago, he clambered on the roof of his little hut, ostensibly to fix a leaking arch. His pocket radio was playing old songs. It was raining outside in the mustard fields. A loose brick led to his fall. Rafi died on the spot while it was still raining outside.

I felt like missing a step on the staircase of memory. Much as I try to, I cannot help thinking about him, his humour, grace and affection for us. Why him? Why him, of all the people?

There is this veil: death. It is dark and rag-like. Stitched in many places by some glum thread. No one who walks into it ever walks out. They are exaggeratedly proper about it.

We, the living, are often asked to move on. But, how can one overpass memories? They become a part of you and no matter where you go in the world, it comes back. You may learn to deal with it, as I attempted, but the songs never stop playing in your soul.

What losing my father taught me…

By Bindu Rai, Entertainment Editor

It will be 11 years this month since we lost dad to cancer. Eleven years of heartbreaks, setbacks, triumphs and joys that he never got to witness or be a part of. He never danced at my wedding. Didn’t cradle the twins when they came home from the hospital. Nor did he celebrate their first birthday or the ones that will follow.

In the weeks following his death, the trauma of losing him was so overwhelming that my mind went into self-preservation mode, erasing all memory of him that would bring me pain. All that remained were the days spent by his bedside at the hospital, holding on to fading hope that he would eventually return home.

The Pollyanna Principle refers to the human tendency to focus on the positive, but it doesn’t factor in actual grief, the almost physical pain of losing a loved one so precious that memories of a life spent together can manifest a kind of hurt that leaves you crippled. Where your mind chooses to forget rather than relive the happy moments because you know they will never return.

Grief is a rite of passage that we must experience in life. That’s what makes us human and appreciate the positives that life has to offer. And it was through that valley of darkness that I found the light. Where negativity and hurt were slowly eroded to hold on to some precious moments that I once chose to forget.

And if you’re wondering, the answer is no, I will never forget the trauma of those three weeks in the hospital. But what I choose to hold on to our memories of a warm hug, of teaching me how to swim on a hot summer day, allowing me to simply fall, knowing he will always be my safety net, even without physically being there.

Memory and its function

Memory is the process of acquiring, storing and retaining information. Human memory involves the capability of retaining and recovering information either learned or experienced.

Much of our stored memory stays outside our realm of immediate awareness. While some memories are brief others stay a lifetime.

The ability to retrieve and store information properly helps human beings to solve problems, interact with others and also make calculated decisions.

Why do painful memories linger?

People always tend to retain memories of negative experiences more than positive ones, and that according to many psychologists predates us.

“Many psychologists think that this has evolutionary roots; that is: It’s more important for people, for survival, to notice the lion in the brush than it is to notice the beautiful flower that’s growing on the other side of the way,” Laura Carstensen, a psychology professor at Stanford University, was quoted in reports.