Author: Jairo Alarcón Rodas
Whom one day we will keep company.
…but maybe the dead need each other. In reality, they probably need everything we need and we need so much. If only we knew what it was.
Charles Bukowski
Memories are, perhaps, a short history of people, through them life times, experiences received, deep feelings that correspond to the personal data of each person saved, which they record in their memory. In such a way that each one is, to some extent, a sum of the memories that have been acquired, so it is said that he is a historical person who is at the same time a maker of stories.
From the beginning of life, what each person begins to notice, there is their own record, but it is also a record of other people. In the first years the memories are different, the memory in each one is just developing, maybe that is why the movements do not return at that stage of life, they are dumb and blind, they are still in the dark, however, they exist. , affirming what we will be
Later, when one is aware of himself and also of others, the memory of the events awakens and everything that gives meaning to what is and will be in life is on him to register. Saving images, experiences, information is essential for human beings, what would happen to them if they did not have the ability to remember, what they have experienced, to save the experiences they have had.
Learning is mainly memory, but not only that, for example, emotional relationships are established and strengthened through the sum of pleasant moments, feelings and shared desires, which are registered as something valuable. Returning regularly to knowledge, to build ideas, feelings from nothing, is not possible for a historical person who has accumulated experiences. Therefore, love is achieved when an emotional connection is achieved with another person and that is possible from preserving previous experiences, from agreeing emotionally with someone.
But what happens when it is not reciprocated, when one expresses special respect to someone and receives no response, such information was captured by Charles Dickens in his A history between two cities, in which Sidney Carton sacrifices his life for the love of Lucie Manette, or as the man described therein The Sorrows of Werther Young Goethe, through his support of Charlotte’s love. In both stories, the result was letting yourself die because it couldn’t be reversed. So can such a feeling be called love? Or does it have to be letters to express it that way?
Love is a feeling that is achieved when sympathies are woven, when there is mutual recognition and when there is emotional contact. Thus Fromm said: There is no love without giving, and true love is without receiving.. However, by admitting a feeling towards someone, as an honor, it also leaves a mark, there is still a memory that is written in personal history.
It is memory, if there is a permanence of what has been experienced as long as life lasts, that is why For Bergson, it is duration, because it contains in itself the presence of the past in the present, and it then focuses on the future.. Therefore, memories are an essential part of every person, they are what they are, because being without memories is like a dead person alive. There are terrible evils, diseases that wipe out memories, which cause misery to those who suffer from them, as well as those who suffered the amnesia, those who are closest to them, their loved ones.
But there is a selective memory, in which only some data is kept and returned at will, at the convenience of the person who has them, the others, the lived experiences, which are still unconscious, still on the buried in the depth of their consciousness, which is probably the result of practical minds, which remember only what serves and benefits them. In this regard, John Dewey said, We remember, naturally, what interests us and why we are interested..
Others, however, do not forget and with incredible pain keep every moment they have lived, every course of their lives. But as Gabriel García Márquez said: Remembering is easy for those who remember. It is hard for those who have a heart to forgetnot remembering what hurts, unpleasant moments, everything that causes pain with his memory, is also part of human ability.
Little by little, the creatures with whom the first stages of being are shared, leave, without returning, leaving nostalgia after their absence. However, his presence is recorded, he is already a part of each of the remaining ones. His memory lives on as long as those who have treasured him and are already an important part of their being.
Juan Rulfo said: Each sigh is like a sip of life that one can take away and the same thing happens with every breath of life that does not return, every experience gained, every moment, moment, the second thing that happens, because life also goes into the death, returning to the beginning, returning to nothingness.
Death is always present, it is inevitable for all living things, impossible to avoid. So one day everyone will be no more, and so the pain is not for those who are gone, not for longer, but for those who remain, because they are the ones who get the longing and sadness of the absent only the memories remain.
Therefore, the living carry in their memory the memories of the people who are gone, who are gone forever, the deceased. There are dead people who are loved, beloved, precious, there are also those who were despised, who mean little to the memory of the living, but whom history remembers despite being forgotten ones.
Nevertheless, in the minds of those who shared feelings, who were at the same time in life, the closest to those who are no longer here, remembering them has a special value, although they have no meaning for the rest of the world. And the truth is that even the most heinous criminals had someone who remembers them fondly.
The dead are remembered because in life they were an important part of life, with which feelings were woven that are written in every personal story. Without it, being will be empty, dry of feelings, of content, without everything. The memory left by the dead is vital, because they, without their presence, shout about the importance of the presence of the living.
