Do you remember when you were a kid and you never had any idea of what happened or who a certain person was? The kid you’d run around the playground with everyday, you never knew their name. Nor did you know what the old couple next door was called. And that over presumptuous babysitter that came over every saturday night, what was her name?

But all’s well when you’re young and information floats straight through one ear and out the other. Adults don’t expect children to have the intellectual capacity to remember such complex information.

As you get older, you are expected to attain the ability to recollect small facts such as ones name. This being entirely rational because as the child matures so does the brain and the memory of the child. If one fails to remember something as simple as another persons name, then it is expected that the other person show signs of hurt or even betrayal.


That hurt in another’s eyes is something I am all too familiar with. Having a brain tumor manifest in my frontal lobe, which is the memory section of the brain, left me with selective memory which I like to call SSMP (Slightly Stupid Memory Processor). Some things I remember every detail about; I can never forget anything sometimes. All the books I’ve read during endless days at the hospital, I can quote verbatim along with the thousands of words and definitions I’ve read in the dictionary. All the facts I‘ve learned over my life stick in the corners of my brain, same with every single event and memory in my life. And I always remember my SSMP.

I cannot, however, remember people. In my memories the people are just bodies. Nameless, faceless bodies. It’s really unfortunate when you meet someone for the first time and it turns out you’ve been best friends your whole life and you saw each other not only yesterday. I’ll have good days where I remember the ones closets to me like my always forgiving mother and my best friend Branley. But on my bad days I can’t even remember who I am or where I am.

This particular morning I woke up in my bed, knowing who I am, but not having the slightest recollection of this starry eyed woman looking down at me from the side of my bed.