Thank you to all who have asked about my mom. She is doing well physically, still plays a mean game of gin rummy, but her memory – or at least her access to her memories – lays somewhere between fuzzy and random with spots of complete clarity. Visits with her are a wonderful mix of storytelling and sometimes making a connection. Makes you wonder how memory works?

There are many descriptions of the different kinds of memory operative in people. There is implicit or procedural memory. This refers to the use of objects or movements of the body, such as how exactly to use a pencil, fry an egg, or operate the TV. There is semantic memory which refers to knowledge about factual information, such as the meaning of words. These and other similar implicit memory categories are independent of a context. These are working just fine in my mom. She still cooks breakfast, watches TV, and plays gin rummy – all without a hitch. And has no trouble expressing herself when she again has bested her son at the card table.

Most often when we talk about memory, we are thinking about what they call explicit memory. Explicit memory refers to all memories that are consciously available. A couple of categories within explicit memory are autobiographical, contextual, and episodic memory.

Autobiographical refers to events and personal experiences from one’s own life. Episodic memory is that collection of past personal experiences occurring at a particular time and place. They might not be written in an autobiography, but are part of our past. They have a significant context. A particular memory of biting into a really red apple and thinking it was the best apple ever could be a contextual memory, a different category of memory.

One day, seeing a particularly pleasing red you might recall the red of that apple, which could be connected to the trip to the orchard which you took with your 4^th grade class. The memories can all be separate, or they can all connect and integrate.

My mom can recall all kinds of stories and detail from her youth up to about age 20 when she lived in Utah. Sadly, mom does not recall living in Paris for two years when she was in her early 60s. But life in Atlanta or Orlando is very much connected to the “red apple effect.” Certain things will spark the pathway to mostly complete memory recall, especially emotions. Emotional memory, the memory for events that evoke a particularly strong emotion, seems to have an operation in the brain that works a little different from other memory functions.

Many times during the visits with mom we will pull out pictures and start story telling. Somewhere in the context of the picture or story, a pathway sparks. Maybe its contextual memory, perhaps emotional memory, or some other reason the neurons fire and one of those moments of complete clarity comes about.

A common thread among all things one can read regarding memory is that repetition and connection to emotion/context at a young age establishes memory pathways that are most readily accessible. It should give us pause. What are the stories that we tell and retell in our families to the youngest among us? What are the stories we pass on from generation to generation? And do we tell them in a way that is memorable? Will they be “red apple” stories?

Rhys Amin is my mom’s great-grandson. My mom has met him but does not remember him. But will Rhys remember her? Depends on the stories his mom, grandmother, and aunt tells him.

What are the stories you are telling your children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, little brothers and sisters? Will they know from your stories that Jesus is our Lord and Savior? What stories will we pass on? What stories of Jesus will become their “red apple” stories?

We are a church which rightly teaches the Faith in catechism and theology. But it seems to me, when we are at our best, we are story tellers, ever bringing out the pictures and ever telling the stories of Christ in a way which connects to the deepest part of our life, our emotions, and our memory.

In a way, we are the stories we tell. Our young are becoming the stories they hear. May the stories you tell have meaning and grace