In Memoria Semper Viridis (standard:other, 3245 words)
Author: Eutychus	Added: Jun 15 2005	Views/Reads: 3453/2454	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Not everyone you meet in a nursing home has a vacant Alzheimer's stare about them. Fictionalized account of some discussions I had in such a location some twenty years ago with contemporary updating.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


“Don't go selling us all short. True, we have more than our share of
folks with vacant expressions more or less all the time, but some of us 
are still sharp as tacks.” 

“How do you manage that?” he asked with exaggerated and unnecessary
gesturing. 

“In my case, it was a bout of bacterial meningitis when I was a kid. At
least that's the theory.” 

“You'll have to explain it to me sometime. Right now I need to go
irritate some other folks.” 

The following Saturday, he intentionally avoided Carl until he had
visited everyone else. Many of the same stunts he had tried the 
previous week had played to the same reviews from the same people. He 
would not attempt this again, though, simply because it felt dishonest. 


Lou was making the rounds with his son and grandkids which afforded them
some privacy to discuss medical matters. 

“So how did they treat meningitis way back when?” 

“Penicillin was the antibiotic of choice, but I just remember having to
lie down a lot and that my head felt like it was on fire if I tried to 
do more than walk gently from my bed to the bathroom. And moving my 
bowels was another real adventure. Who knew you used muscles in your 
head?” he wondered and winced at the pain of the memory. 

“And how long have you thought that this illness made you more aware of
the world for the long term?” 

“Some doctors from the Cleveland Clinic did a PET scan a few years back
and discovered that there were unexpected hot spots in the prefrontal 
cortex and the hippocampus. Do you know what those are?” 

“Um, the hippocampus is part of the limbic system, the most primitive
part of the brain. The prefrontal cortex is located before the frontal 
cortex?” 

“You get a passing grade. The hippocampus apparently regulates how
memories are stored. That is not all it does, but that is the only 
important role it plays in this discussion. The prefrontal cortex 
regulates how it performs that task. The hot spots found in the PET 
scan are neurons misfiring because of scar tissue acquired from the 
meningitis. I therefore process memory differently from most. I am told 
there is a mechanism, probably excess stress hormones, that help to 
imprint a memory, and another that allows for a memory to fade from the 
conscious mind to be stored in its entirety on a second track, as it 
were, in the subconscious. If the memory happens to be traumatic 
enough, this mechanism even allows you to push it far enough into the 
subconscious that it requires special conditioning to bring the memory 
to the surface again. Repressed memories, I think the tabloid TV talk 
shows call it.” 

“Does that mean your memories don't fade because of the damage from the
meningitis?” 

Carl paused before answering, drew a long breath and let it out slowly.
“Have you ever done something stupid? I mean really stupid. Something 
that the instant after it happened you'd turn all kinds of dirty deals 
with the devil to change it.” 

He thought about it briefly, came up with some embarrassing moments,
thoughtless remarks directed at persons who did not really deserve the 
words, and one or two enormous boners he had pulled as an adolescent. 

“Okay, those are good examples. I never would have taken you for such a
schmuck,” he said with a laugh. “You really had to think about it to 
come up with those few, didn't you?” 

“I suppose I did.” 

“Try and imagine not having to think about it. Imagine a life in which
every memory intrudes upon your consciousness unannounced. If I had to 
give it a handle, I would have to say I have an inverse form of 
Alzheimer's. My memories do not disappear into the ether but play 
constantly on tracks that overlap with the present. Ever read 
Slaughterhouse Five?” 

“Yes, it's a great read. So you have something like a photographic
memory. Some folks would see that as a major advantage in life.” 

“That is a poor term and a vacant one because there really is no such
thing. The closest you come is in some children who have the ability to 
recall an image so vividly that they can in a sense ‘see' it. This is 
called eidetic memory and it fades with age. Children think in pictures 
whereas adults think in concepts. And there are more disadvantages than 
advantages I have found to this form of drain bamage.” 

“Cute. Is there anything to be done for it?” 

“Study it. That is about all anyone can do. Besides, I have coped for
close to seventy years. Why fix it now? It would be like someone with 
life-long anosmia suddenly getting their sense of smell back. The whole 
world would stink. I can't imagine losing things, misplacing car keys, 
not being able to find my wallet.” 

“Are there any other advantages worth mentioning?” 

Carl smiled. “I remember my wife coming down the aisle. One of her heels
got stuck in a crack in the floor of the barracks. A friend of mine 
used the barrel of a carbine rifle to pop it out. She kicked off the 
shoes and ran the rest of the way. That is always a nice one to 
revisit. And I do use those memories to try and keep the less pleasant 
ones at bay. Depending on how you lived your life, I can imagine this 
being a very debilitating disorder. In fact, in the early days before I 
learned how to use memories to defend against memories, they could 
paralyze me emotionally and sometimes physically. I came to appreciate 
some of  Henry the Fourth's problems.” 

“British monarch?” 

“More the play by Shakespeare about that King. Allow me to show off.
Henry IV, part two, acts three, scene one. Henry speaking, the page has 
just exited with letters for the Earls of Surrey and Warwick: ‘How many 
thousand of my poorest subjects are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O 
gentle sleep, Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, that thou 
no more wilt weigh my eyelids down and steep my senses in 
forgetfulness?' He goes on to talk about various persons and 
professions who find consolation in the ability to forget the troubles 
of the day in sleep, a respite that he no longer enjoys. Uneasy lies 
the head that wears a crown. Or that cannot properly process memories. 
There is an upside to being able to put away the unpleasant side of 
life.” 

“But you did learn a way to defend against memories?” 

“It took some doing but yes.” 

“You said you got married in a barrack. Was this a promise made before
leaving for war?” 

“Yes. I was a medic in World War Two. European Theatre. I have a lot of
memories to deal with. Mostly I use better memories to counter the 
worst ones. But every once in a while, something will catch me 
unprepared and I will be worthless to myself and others for a while. At 
that point I have to concentrate very hard to fight down uncomfortable 
emotions.” 

He made a calculated assumption and asked, “You mean like last week?” 

“Exactly. Something in the news had been eating at me for a while and
memories surfaced. When you were in school and studying about World War 
Two, did any of your textbooks have photos of emaciated men in their 
bunks, more skeleton than person, with deep set, hollow looking eyes 
staring at the camera?” 

“Yes they did. That was an image that I never forgot.” 

“Then you might understand the position of the man who took the photo. I
was the medic with the camera. It was a few weeks before the fall of 
Berlin and Hitler's army was on the run. We were starting to understand 
just what we had been fighting, or at least how deep the depravity ran. 
Luckily I missed the liberation of Auschwitz, Dachau and other such 
places of infamy. But I did see first hand the effects of starvation 
and dehydration in a few forced labor camps. These men, women, and 
children, slave labor for the Nazis, had not eaten in longer than any 
of them could remember. It had been a week since the last storm front 
had moved through the area meaning that they were seven days without 
water.” 

He thought back over the recent headlines and knew just what had caused
in Carl's recent trip down memory lane. 

“I may actually have done more harm initially than good for those people
by giving them water. Their electrolytes were severely imbalanced from 
lack of hydration. The ones who had gone without water for the longest 
had a dangerously low rate of respiration. This meant that carbon 
dioxide remained dissolved in their blood as carbonic acid, and the 
increase in acidity threw their hearts into arrhythmias. Muscle cramps 
were frequent and severe. I sometimes wonder how suddenly adding water 
to that solution hurried the process along by causing a sudden change 
in the  blood chemistry.” 

“And recent events in Florida brought it all back to center stage for
you?” 

“Not the events themselves. Hell, I had to deal with the same questions
after my wife's stroke. Luckily, we had a living will in effect and 
there were no questions when the hard decisions came. Just something 
that someone's lawyer said to the media that made no goddamned sense at 
all. He said that the poor woman looked so beautiful in this process of 
dying. She looked better than she had looked in years. Peaceful, 
serene. Having seen my share of death, I can tell you that it is never 
beautiful and rarely serene. The media should have talked to some of 
the survivors from those concentration camps we liberated to get a real 
handle on what that woman had to endure. My personal feeling is the 
lawyer should be locked in a room for fourteen days without food or 
water. Then he will be qualified to give insights. I'd even go so far 
as to offer him a bucket for sanitation purposes and give him a pine 
cone to wipe his ass with.” 

“I like your sense of justice. I take it that if the memory doesn't come
unannounced, it's easier to deal with?” 

“Oh yes. When I intentionally recall something, it's under my control
and isn't incapacitating.” 

“What has having to deal with every memory you've ever had done for you?
There must be some worthwhile observations you can make on the human 
condition.” 

“Remembering as much as I do tells me that we are all much grander than
we seem. Locked in our brain is every experience we have ever had in 
minute detail. Because we carry all that with us all the time, we are 
also far more complicated than some would have us believe. Ask any 
psychiatrist. I sometimes think about that notion in Genesis about man 
being made in the image of God. The infinite side of God, I mean. Maybe 
we were created to be able to understand much more than we do. Or maybe 
I'm an old man who, by virtue of my age, tends to bring God into the 
conversation just because I'm likely to see him soon.” 

“Not too soon, we'll hope. You have a lot of history recorded that you
ought to consider sharing. Ever give an oral history?” 

“What's that?” 

“Someone sits down with you and a tape recorder, they ask some leading
questions, and you answer with as much detail as you can. Local 
historical societies do this all the time with the older members of the 
community. It's a way of preserving collective memories.” 

“That's a thought. Of course, they'll get much more than they bargained
for with me,” Carl said with a laugh. “I bet there aren't many folks 
who remember the color of the jacks used by teamsters to flatten tires 
during labor disputes in the mid-1930s.” 

“I'll be back with a tape recorder for sure next week.” 

“Any chance you could do this without the makeup? It's just hard not to
be distracted when trying to speak seriously to a clown.” 

“But then you'll know me for who I am. It totally ruins the image,” he
said with mock seriousness. 

“If you plan on knowing all the details of my life, then it's only right
that I get to see your bad side too.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“You would think the city maintenance people could keep from obscuring
the names with grass clippings,” his wife commented as they made their 
way to her dad's grave to make the annual Memorial Day plantings. 
“Especially given the holiday and the fact that the whole town will be 
here for the service Monday.” 

He swept the grass away from the stone and they began planting
marigolds. They discussed the arrangement of colors, the smell of her 
dad's tobacco, and the way he could ‘fix' anything with a hammer, 
pliers, and tar. By the time they finished, she was smiling from the 
memories. 

They crossed a tree line separating an older section from the most
recent addition to the cemetery and walked to a stone that had been 
there for ten years less than her dad's. He looked approvingly at the 
work his sisters had done in front of and behind his mom's stone. He 
tried to conjure up some of the fluffy recollections like the ones his 
wife had pulled from memory, but he found himself paralyzed by thoughts 
of corporate malfeasance that had nurtured a practice of not informing 
workers of the dangers to which they exposed themselves and their 
families. 

Asbestos had followed his grandfather home from work and in the process
of doing the laundry his mom had set herself up for a very unpleasant 
death. He resented the way he had allowed himself to be robbed of the 
pleasant memories by obsessing over the injustice of the circumstances 
that had resulted in a premature death. He looked at the book in his 
hand and decided it might be time to take a lesson from the past three 
years in Carl's company. 

On the way back to the car, they paused briefly at Carl's stone. 

“Are you really going to leave that book here?” 

“It's his story. I just transcribed it from the tapes and took advantage
of on-demand publishing, printing a copy for me, the Garfield 
Hysterical Society, and Carl.” 

“ ‘In Memoria Semper Viridis',” she read from the backside of the stone.
“What's the point of that?” 

“It's what he wanted me to use for the title,” he said and held out the
book so she could read the cover, In Memory Always Green. “He always 
had a thing for Latin.” 

“And a goofy sense of humor to boot. ‘Fui Quod Sis, Sum Quod Eris'. You
are what I was; I am what you will be. Just what did he mean by that?” 

“I'm not sure. Perhaps it's just an admonition to live life well,” he
said and placed the book on the headstone. He wrapped an arm around her 
waist and added, “Let's go make some memories.” 


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