The Cracked Acorn: Memories

A late friend’s garage only had a car and maybe spider webs, not so with mine. In one of my forays to straighten up, throw away, and organize I discovered a 1962 sci-fi paperback from a summer garage sale- ALL THE TRAPS OF EARTH by Clifford Simak. One of the short stories was about a domestic robot, Richard Daniel, that had outlasted all the members of the Barrington family and was now about to be auctioned off as part of the estate, refurbished, and reprogrammed.

His job had come to an end. Six hundred years of service and memories; the Barringtons thought him special and had given him two names unusual to robots always called by one name. When Richard Daniel discovered that reprogramming would mean the loss of his memories; he was bitter. He told the estate lawyer that his memories were special. “They are all I have after six hundred years, they are my sole possession. Can you imagine, counselor, what it means to spend six centuries with one family? They are a comfort. A sustaining comfort. They make me feel important. They give me perspective and a niche. I must be myself. I’ve found a depth of living, a background against which my living has meaning. I could not face being anybody else!” Richard Daniel stows away on a ship bound for other worlds. The story does have a happy ending. Richard Daniel finds he has talents that help him to fit into another earth-like community. The people are willing to accept him for what he is, even though his helping hands are metallic.

Memory is one of the great gifts that God gave us when we became “living souls.”(Gen.2:7) We need our memories to go about our lives, to do our work. Memories are formed from repetitive tasks and emotional experiences.

Years go by and we may be able to recall a particular family outing but can’t remember the wonderful food served on that day. How memory is formed and recalled is still one of the neural mysteries of all time.

As we age we desperately try to hold on to our fond thoughts that have been with us for many decades. You see this in nursing homes. The residents love to re-tell all the memories they can recall to each and every visitor. Age and disease affect what we can remember.

In the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan repeatedly told a heartbreaking story of a WWII bomber pilot who ordered his crew to bail out after his plane had been seriously damaged by enemy fire. His young belly gunner was wounded so seriously that he was unable to evacuate the bomber. The pilot told the gunner, “Never mind. We’ll ride it down together.” Reagan was almost in tears. The story was really from a scene in the 1944 film “A Wing and a Prayer.” Reagan had retained the facts but had forgotten the source. This will affect many of us as we age if it hasn’t happened already.

SCRIPTURES remembering:

Ecclesiastes 12 – Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”

1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 – We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 11:24 – and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for^[a] you. Do this in remembrance of me.

From SACRED SELECTIONS- Precious Memories (J.B.F. Wright,1966)

“Precious memories, unseen angels, Sent from somewhere to my soul; How they linger, ever near me, And the sacred past unfold.