This past weekend while visiting friends in Chicago, Marilyn and I had the unique privilege of sharing breakfast with someone in the midst of what must be one of the most radical life-challenges imaginable.
For some unknown reason, this young woman began to experience memory loss that quickly developed into full blown amnesia. Her doctors were unable to identify the reason for this unfortunate malady. One day, she was engaged to be married and working happily in the profession for which she had trained—and the next, she suddenly began to experience strange physical symptoms.
Nagging headaches resulted in disorientation which eventually exploded into a total loss of her associative memory! She could read, write, walk and talk, but she mysteriously lost her ability to remember people, places and past events.
Just like in the movies, she knew no one—including, most dramatically, her fiancé. Every face she looked into was a stranger’s face. Each day began with questions like, “Who am I?” and “What is your name?”
She had to learn all over again who she was and why she lived where she lived. Her mother and father passed away before her amnesia, leaving her an only child in her late teens. Her amnesia blocked any feelings of loss or grief—how do you grieve for people about whom you have no memory?
Try as she may, the process of reestablishing who she was and who she had loved proved nearly overwhelming, although in the energy of her youth she approached each new day with a cheery disposition. Those who knew her previously described her as “the same pleasant, eternally-optimistic young lady.”
She matter-of-factly called it quits with her brokenhearted fiancé, having no affectionate remembrance of him or attraction to him. The professional training she labored to achieve, once so necessary for her career, had been sealed away in the same vault that contained her personal information—a vault to which she had no key, forever locked deep inside.
I found her story literally mind-boggling. It’s one thing to view such a story on a movie screen, detached from reality, and quite another to sit across the table from someone who is experiencing amnesia in real time and in real frustration. She patiently described the daily labor of reinventing herself.
I listened carefully as the waiter asked for her breakfast order. Struggling to remember what she liked or didn’t like, she fumbled with the menu and then in surrender, smiled and said, “Just coffee, I guess; I think I’m allergic to eggs.” I gasped out loud, thinking to myself, “I wonder if she even remembers what an egg tastes like?”
She has found genuine purpose and an obvious source of consolation as a volunteer companion to rest-home bound seniors. Doesn’t it makes perfect sense that she would have a heart connection with the infirmed who find themselves left behind by a world moving faster than they are able?
Fortunately, her memory loss was limited to the time before her amnesic experience. She can establish a new bank of memories—although, like a recovering athlete, she must work to retrain each new memory. She jots notes in a well-worn notebook and relies heavily on a GPS to navigate the city. She told me she loves the button marked “Previously Saved Locations” and uses the “Go Home” button most often.
I couldn’t help but reflect how often I forget where I came from and where I’m going. I’m not speaking about a loss of memory but a loss of focus.
The Bible recognizes how easily we forget our way and wander off… off from kinder purposes… off from a more spiritual lifestyle…just off.
“We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way” (Isaiah 53:6). However…”He gives me new strength. He guides me in the right paths, as he has promised” (Psalm 23:3).
It’s easy to forget what you once knew… that God is near and cares for you. May I encourage you, like my new found friend, make the Bible your well-worn notebook and His Spirit your GPS.
Read Ron’s column, Simple Faith, each Saturday on the Faith Page (page 3) of the Lancaster Eagle Gazette, or visit www.lancastereaglegazette.com.