Now What was that Again?

There is this character called Mr Twiddle in Enid Blyton’s books. He is a kind-hearted soul but very forgetful and his wife is driven to distraction by his actions. He is  a bit like a grand-dad in early dementia.

I used to think that it is impossible for Mr Twiddle to constantly fall over the cat or put the stick of butter into the oven instead of into the refrigerator, until I found myself putting the open carton of fresh milk into the larder and the car keys in the shed. I am not denying that memory lapses come with age, but then again, how is it possible that my friends in their 70s and 80s can remember things with such precision when I find it hard to remember what I ate for supper even?

It is recorded that medieval Irish literature preserved truly ancient traditions in a form virtually unchanged through centuries of oral tradition back to the ancient Celts of Europe. Oral tradition and oral lore is cultural material and tradition transmitted verbally down the generations. These stories are transmitted in speech or song and may take the form, for example, of folktales, sayings, ballads, or chants. Thus even without a writing system, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other types of knowledge across generations. Even the oral tradition of passing on tunes is ongoing in Irish Traditional Music.

I have certainly never been engaged in any form of serious oral tradition. At most. it was a nursery rhyme here and there and a proverb or two.

I remember studying about short term and long term memory power in a psychology class. Either I was too distracted by the lecturer’s good looks or I merely retained the facts for the purpose of doing well in the paper, I cannot remember much of it today. But one I think that still lingers on my mind is creating a to-do list to sharpen memory skills.

So I started a to-do list. This to-do list was painstakingly entered into my filofax (that was before smart phones made an appearance). Alternatively, I would stick post-its on the fridge or soft board. Once I had completed the things on my to-do list, I would cross them out, sort of a first- in- first- out system. It worked perfectly for me and I did not have to carry too many things in my head.

Another thing that could have caused my memory power to go into lazy mode is my personal mantra of ‘living for today’. Even if I had won the most coveted award for being the greatest woman ever lived, I would have revelled in the euphoria of that experience for just a while and then moved on because there is so much to life than resting on yesterday’s laurels. This goes for bad experiences as well. Someone once said the best way to punish your enemies is to forgive them because life is too short to hate and so we march on into the future, consciously not letting bad experiences gnaw us from within.

Some people that I have met can remember every little milestone their children had achieved. I am totally hopeless in that area and that is why I find photo albums and scrapbooks most helpful. Just the other day I met a man who said he cut a tree in our backyard twenty years ago. Now if he had been cutting trees for the most part of his life, how could he have remembered which tree he had cut in which year?

There are many people who love to retell their stories. I find that there are more talkers than listeners everywhere I go. Almost everyone seems to want to talk about himself and expect others to listen. I have heard some of them tell the same story over and over again, to the same group of people or to different groups of people. So maybe this is the secret to increasing memory power – repetition.

Just when I thought that maybe I was losing ‘it’, wikipedia threw some light into the occasional lapses in memory which do not necessary mean signs of serious mental deterioration or the onset of dementia. This includes: forgetting where you left things you use regularly, such as glasses or keys; forgetting names of acquaintances or blocking one memory with a similar one, such as calling a daughter by another daughter’s  name; occasionally forgetting an appointment; having trouble remembering what you have just read, or the details of a conversation; walking into a room and forgetting why you entered; becoming easily distracted and not quite being able to retrieve information you have “on the tip of your tongue.”

Games that activate the brain should help. So maybe it is time to reach for the crossword puzzle or Sudoku.

Now who is Mr Twiddle that started me on the writing of this article?

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/now-what-was-that-again-1.539177

Looking For the Blueprint

THE movie Philomena won the BAFTA award for best adapted screenplay. The story of a son looking for his biological mother and the biological mother looking for her son would tug any heartstrings, more so when the mother and son in question are Irish.

Stories abound where years ago, unwed Irish mothers were put away in workhouses or convents because they were "fallen women" and their children were given up for adoption or sold.

Philomena was pregnant and unmarried at 18, so she was kept out of sight at Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, county Tipperary, behind grey stone walls.

In recent years however, adoptions in Ireland have become increasingly rare. Prospective parents now look abroad to adopt a child in a process called inter-country adoption.

At some point or another in our lives, we have wondered if we were adopted, especially when we do not look like our siblings.

Doubts creep in when we think and feel that our parents favour our brother or sister over us.

Stories that our parents tell us when we ask them about conception do not help either: the stork drops babies into chimneys or babies are found in dustbins and cabbage patches.

In the process of instilling fear into us or making us toe the line, parents even threaten to "give us away" if we misbehave.

I am not adopted and neither have I adopted a child. I cannot imagine what a parent goes through in the process of giving up a child to someone else.

However, my earliest memory of such a scenario was when I was about 10. I was living above a furniture shop then and usually I would exchange pleasantries with the owner of the shop when I got home from school, before making my way up the stairs, school bag and all.

On that particular day, he looked very downcast and, even after I had greeted him, he made no response.

So I asked my mother what had happened to him and she told me that he had just "given away" his sixth daughter because business was poor and they could not afford to feed another mouth.

In some cultures, it is required by law to state that a child is adopted. However, there are cases where the names of the adoptive parents are recorded as the biological parents of the child.

I have friends who have told their adopted children that they were adopted right from the start.

I also have friends who have never told their children they were adopted. '

Among the famous who were adopted were Marilyn Monroe, John Lennon, Nelson Mandela and Babe Ruth.

Steve Jobs was adopted and even though he was subsequently re-united with his biological parents, he continually affirmed that his adoptive parents were his parents 1,000 per cent.

Every now and again, we read in the papers of people searching for their biological parents or parents searching for the babies that they had given up for adoption many years ago.

Sometimes, a chance meeting of siblings separated by birth but yet look very much alike, has paved the way for a reunification.

The book Adoption Healing, a path to recovery by psychotherapist Joe Soll, a licensed clinical social worker, lists down the myths and facts about adoption.

According to his findings, most people surrender a child to adoption because they lack the resources to do otherwise.

Bonding begins before birth and the child suffers the pain of separation from her mother.

The discovery of her adoption status is confirmation of what is innately felt and known by the child. Women who lose babies to adoption never forget and their loss is unresolvable.

There are reports of happy endings where families are re-united and aching chasms filled.

Yet, I have heard of those who have met their biological parents but chose not to have further contact with them. I have also read of biological mothers who had kept it a secret all their lives and felt that the resurfacing of a child given up for adoption would disrupt their present status.

There is just no generic rule that reunification spells happiness.

Source: Looking for the blueprint - Columnist - New Straits Times http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/looking-for-the-blueprint-1.503229#ixzz2w54r9wM6