Memory

I just read a wonderful article by the esteemed author and neurologist, Oliver Sacks, about a man who suffers from severe amnesia. Here’s the link http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/24/070924fa_fact_sacks
There is also an audio story about memory which you can find at WNYC’s web site
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/08/segments/71874

Sacks writes about the eminent musician and musicologist, Clive Wearing who when struck by a brain infection – a herpes encephalitis – was left with a memory span of only seconds. Every few seconds, everything is new to Clive. The most remarkable thing about Clive’s story is that despite his memory being wiped clean ever few seconds, he has retained his sublime ability to play and conduct music. It is the one thing that can keep him in the moment and delay his memory from being reset. The music, it seems, propels the moment on and on.

Errol is very different from Clive in many ways, but Clive’s story made me think of him. Errol has very limited memory, which makes it difficult for him to remember anything he learns (not just numbers or letter, but basic things like, walking and talking). Many of the advances Errol makes are ephemeral. One step forward, two steps back. He said “hi” last week (to great fanfare and acclaim), and yet he really hasn’t spoken since. We learn a lot of things over and over again.

But mostly, as I read about Clive playing his beloved music, inhabiting one long, seamless, beautiful moment, propelled along by the song, I was struck with thoughts of happy Errol. We went to the park this evening and while Owen made a city in the sand, Errol swung. He laughed and smiled and laugh as we swung him forward, and as he got to the apex of the arc of each swing he would let out a shriek of delight, and his little legs would shake with pleasure. Errol lives in a long beautiful song which makes all of us happy, beyond delight.

Clive’s story is, indeed, sad, and part of Errol’s is too (his weak memory may very well preclude his walking or talking – although we will do all we can to help him). But, oh, to be able to inhabit that rapturous moment the was Errol does is the most precious and elusive of gifts.



*This picture above is Errol at school last year. He's in a contraption that helps him learn to use his legs. If Errol walks and talks (his teachers would, in their constant positivity, say when) it will be because of the miracle workers at The Children's Center. The photograph in the foreground is not Osama Bin Laden, but who it is is beyond me.