About 17 years ago my husband and I visited with an elderly couple who lived an hour’s drive north of here. They were a genteel and charming couple who had been married for a long time. The wife served us tea. The husband told us stories. Then he told us a story from which his wife’s memory differed. She corrected him. He disagreed with her. She disagreed with him. They went back and forth. My husband and I sat with our teacups, observing this dispute between two people we had just met. Then the wife turned to us, smiled, and said, "Undoubtedly we are both right."<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We have remembered that couple and the wife’s statement ever since
\nand have used it on occasion when we have disagreed on the facts of a
\nstory in the same genial manner that the woman used when she said it 17
\nyears ago. She said it in a way that it was easy to believe that she
\nhad said it many times before. I loved how she brought that
\ndisagreement to a close. <\/p>\n
Ten years ago and also within the last week I have encountered the
\nfact that my memory and my daughter’s memory of things past differ. I
\nhave read that after divorces the two spouses often tell two different
\naccounts of what happened in their marriage as though they each
\nexperienced something entirely different from what the other
\nexperienced while living under the same roof. I am reminded of that.<\/p>\n
I have been tempted to defend myself point by point and to speculate
\non why we remember things so differently. In some cases I have no
\nmemory at all of something that she is saying that I did. Nor can I
\nbelieve that I could be capable of being so mean and then be able to
\nforget it. Her description of events is so negative that I would not
\nwant to meet the person she is describing because I would dislike that
\nperson so much. The person in these descriptions bears my name but it
\nisn’t the me that I know so well. Then I read that she says that her
\nstepmother has said, "It wasn’t me," in reference to a separate account
\nthat my daughter gave of something that happened between the two of
\nthem. <\/p>\n
As soon as I typed, "It isn’t the me that I know," I remembered what
\nmy daughter wrote about her stepmother and it gave me a different
\nperspective on my daughter’s perceptions of events and the people
\ninvolved. Typing those words "it isn’t me" and then leaving them here
\ndespite my daughter’s previous reaction to having heard something
\nsimilar from her stepmother is because it occurred to me that my
\ndaughter would interpret them specifically as me disclaiming
\nresponsibility for having done something bad. I am not saying
\ndisclaiming responsibility. I am saying that I did not do something bad
\nperiod.<\/p>\n
I can’t speak for my daughter’s stepmother. Speaking for myself, I
\nknow that when I say, "it wasn’t the me that I know," I mean that I
\nknow that I am not a cruel horrible person and that the account that my
\ndaughter gives of events is not consistent with who I am and how I am
\nand what I am. <\/p>\n
Yet my daughter remembers things as though I was a cruel horrible
\nperson. She remembers a mother who harangued her to dive off a diving
\nboard and she was not a good swimmer. I have no memory of this. I am
\nnot a good swimmer and have never been good at diving off a diving
\nboard. I hate to get my face underwater. I can’t swim underwater. I
\nhave always been afraid of water. I am empathetic with anyone’s,
\nincluding my daughter’s, fear of water. <\/p>\n
I recall that my daughter is not a good swimmer. I have no memory of
\nseeing her on a diving board nor do I have a memory of haranguing her
\nto dive off a diving board. That kind of behavior is foreign to my
\nknowledge of myself and of anything that I would do. If she remembers
\nsomething related to a diving board and me and swimming and haranguing,
\nI have to say, "it wasn’t me," because to my knowledge of myself, I
\nwouldn’t do something like what she is describing. If I was there and
\nsaid something, I can’t imagine that it was in the spirit of haranguing
\nor of demeaning her because she wouldn’t jump off. Can she ever
\nremember ME freely jumping off a diving board with no anxiety or of ME
\nswimming well? If so, that swimmer or diver absolutely could not have
\nbeen me in that memory because I am not capable of jumping off a diving
\nboard without coaxing and instruction and without anxiety. I would not
\ntreat my daughter or anyone else as though I expected them to be able
\nto jump freely off a diving board with no anxiety. <\/p>\n
The only memory I have of diving boards in my daughter’s childhood
\nis that there was one at the public swimming pool and at the lake where
\nI took her in the summer. I can’t recall her even approaching one to
\nstand on. <\/p>\n
I began to wish I knew more about her diving board memory because I
\nmight understand why she remembers it that way but I realize that
\nknowing more about the diving board memory would not tell me why she
\nremembers it the way that she does.<\/p>\n
When it comes to these memories that my daughter and I have, there is no way I can say, "Undoubtedly we are both right."<\/p>\n
I do have many wonderful and positive memories of my daughter,
\nmyself, and my ex from when she was a kid and growing up. I wish that
\nshe had them too. I hope that she has at least some. It’s sad not to be
\nable to remember good things about people when they did happen.<\/p>\n
Snicks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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