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 Managing
memory in old age
Jacques LACARRIERE, in a book with
a revealing title: “A Garden for Memory,” starts
out from his garden, and particularly the linden tree in
it. And a jumble of memories emerges. Personal recollections
of the Landing and the arrival of the Americans in Orleans,
memories of history as seen by the little boy he was then.
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“Jumbles
of memory emerge”.
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More than 50 years after, when he
is 75, memories emerge in a steady flow, enriched by experience,
by life and thought , taking on a new dimension. Many people
note that with age, distant events seem to surface more easily.
Some people are tempted to see this as a failing memory.
Actually they are beginning a new phase of memory work. After
working at top performance to accumulate information, the
memory now finds that it is useful in another way. Now it
is not so much accumulating new information, but organising
the memories already accumulated. The mind needs to find
their meaning, which could not be done at the time of the
events were happening. It is the gradual construction of
the image of an entire life. A task necessary to discover
one’s identity, to recognize ones self amid life’s
many changes and movements. Sometimes older people seem to
repeat themselves. This is frequently only the outer side
of the inner construction work that is going on and that
is not seen by a casual observer. This work is important
late in life, when we feel an inner need to review our memories.
Going over our recollections, with the emotional force that
comes with them, helps us to live now; now that we are approaching
death, to revise the judgements we have held all our lives,
to strengthen ties to key memories and consolidate our identity
at a time when all around things seem to be crumbling. Listen to
elderly people: everyone has quoted the famous saying of
Empaté Bâ: “an old person who dies is
a library that burns.” Too often we regret we have
not taken the time to listen, They knew so much. And in particular,
we have missed the chance to help an ageing person to reorganise
his or her memories and make sense of the multitude of events
that now make up a personality. Respect this
unifying work that is in progress: building the mosaic is
a priority for the memory. It can only be done slowly and
the sympathetic views of other people are a great help. This
return to the past can appear as a regression, but is more
often than not the specific work of an ageing memory. Events
are often lived three times: when they are in preparation,
when they happen and the moment when we eventually return
to them to understand what they mean to us. It is this last
phase we hear when listening to the elderly. By taking an
interest, encourage the retrieval of so
many memories that might seem distant, but they are only
the ground in which our own memory takes root. Our encouragement
is probably the best way to accompany those who will shortly
be leaving us.
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| “Encourage
children to talk to the elderly” |
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 “Does
memory colour the past as age advances ?”
It is often difficult to distinguish
between our own memories of events and the version that
we were told later. Our memories are likely to bracket
together events that happened at different times, but which
to us seem very close or simultaneous. Hence, in all innocence,
we can rebuild events that did not happen the way we recall
them. We would be alarmed if we had to provide testimony
about events that occurred years ago, and our word were
taken to judge someone’s guilt or innocence.
Let us not delude ourselves:
as time goes by, the memory rebuilds, shifts, transforms
events. Is that a reason not to trust it ?
Of course not. It just needs a bit
of caution, and obtaining corroboration from others. Asking
why some things are forgotten, things that seem innocent,
but which are one of the tricks the memory often uses so
as not to retain emotions that are too upsetting.
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