Lily Papandrea
Memory of Memory
Fresh, salty sea air. Its as calming as a lullaby sometimes and in some cases be the answer to
all your problems, all your worries. So why isn’t it working now, when all I can think about
is him, and yet I can’t find a single word of my own to describe him.
Tears were shed at the funeral, but a small part of me had no idea why. I knew my uncle Paul.
Not very well but I knew him. We hadn’t seen him for a while, from what my parents told me
he’d been in a hospital bed for the past few months, unable to say a word or remember his
own name. My parents said it was called dementia, a disease that makes you forget. Not just
your family but yourself. I never understood how bad it was until a few weeks ago. When my
mum began to cry and my dad fell silent for hours. I don’t remember much, but I remember
feeling nothing.
We went to his house after the funeral, to something called a wake. I didn’t know why it was
called that, then again, I didn’t ask. Everyone was there, my uncles and aunts, even my
cousins were there. My dad met up with his family, my mum joined him as they spoke about
Uncle Paul. I kept to myself, my closest cousin stayed with her grandmother, Aunt Maria.
She’d taken care of her husband as he slowly forgot her, as he harmed her and was taken
from her. She understood why he did the things he did, she knew more than me that’s for
sure.
“Remember when he washed your mouth out with soap for swearing?”
I could hear my dad from the kitchen chatting with his cousins. I’d never remembered
coming to a wake before, I’d been to a funeral or two but never a wake, I was probably too
young to remember. So I was confused, confused about the laughter, and smiles when I
thought we were supposed to feel sad. I wondered off, found myself in the corridor. The dark
and empty space was quiet and lonely. Flashes of black and white then colour came one after
the other as I stared at the photographs lining the wall and the little table against it. As I
looked, I could hear stories of my uncle, stories I’d heard a thousand times over, stories that
were the answers to so many of my question about my uncle.
I could remember my dad telling me the story of when Uncle Paul had held him up by the
ears, my dad had gotten in trouble for something, and as punishment he was held by the ears
until he apologised. That story of my dad’s cousin having his mouth washed out with soap,
that was a story I’d heard from everyone. The first time Marco swore Uncle Paul was the
worst day of his life, apparently Marco was coughing up bubbles for the rest of the day.
Marco said it was the worst thing he’d never tasted anything worse, but he never swore in
front of his dad again. I remember asking my dad once, what Uncle Paul was like. My dad
said he was the life of the party, that whenever he’d walk into a room you knew you were
going to have a good time. Mum gave me an example, of a time when my uncle remembered
himself, his family.
It was Christmas Eve, 2004, they were underneath Aunt Maria’s house in the garage, and
mum and a few of dad’s cousins were doing shots. Flaming Sambuca shots. My uncle was
dancing when he noticed them kneeling on the ground with flames in their mouths, asked
them what they were doing. Mum said, “Were having flaming Sambuca shots, wanna try
one?” and Uncle Paul said yes. Getting on his knees and tilting his head back they poured the
Sambuca into his mouth. He was supposed to close his mouth. Instead he decided to be a
flame thrower, causing a fiery mess of everything in front of him. The look of fury from
Aunty Maria was priceless.
Laughter erupted from all three of us at the memory.
Then, dad told me a story about Uncle David. He was dangling over the edge of the Cotter
Dam one day. Held by the ankles 87 meters from the ground, by my Uncle Paul.
The stories continued after that. Uncle Paul was a great swimmer according to mum and dad,
he loved fishing, had taken my dad and his cousin Marco fishing once, out into the rough
open sea that did nothing for your stomach, certainly didn’t for dad and Marco. Uncle Paul
cackled as their stomachs rolled, wouldn’t let them go back to shore. He’d loved being near
the water, probably why he stayed down the coast so much. He was a family man, he worked
hard, and he was very, very strong, sometimes he didn’t know his own strength. One year at
Christmas, Uncle Paul hit dad on his bare back. Unbearable pain rippled throughout his back,
a welted handprint forming in the centre. It was the closest he’d ever come to hitting Uncle
Paul.
My mind and focus came back to the pictures on the wall and table in front of me. All these
stories, the photos, the memories. I came to realise that none of them were my own. I didn’t
really come to know my Uncle Paul at all when I got older. The dementia had already started,
and he began forgetting people. I realised that my earliest memory of Uncle Paul, was when I
was sitting in the garage of my Aunty Rena’s house down the coast, I was playing cards with
my Uncle Joe. Aunt Maria and Uncle Paul walked to our house. I remember Aunt Maria
holding Uncle Paul by the arm, guiding him up the driveway so he wouldn’t wonder off. I
remember looking at them and saying hello, and I remember the look on his face. That blank
look. A look of pure loss and darkness, like he was lost in his own head and slowly
everything he knew was fading away. I sat down next to him, and he just looked at me with
an empty stare. Aunt Maria disappeared to find my parents taking Uncle Joe with her, while
stayed and watched Uncle Paul.
I sat in silence with my Uncle, fiddling with the cards as I watched him sit, fiddling with his
thumbs, as if he wanted to say something but he couldn’t. I knew about the dementia by then,
I knew he couldn’t remember me, but I wanted to be naïve, I wanted to think that he still
remembered, so I asked the question that had been burning in me the second I saw him, “Do
you remember me, Uncle Paul?”. He didn’t say anything, but he heard me. He looked me
dead in the eyes and put his hands on either side of my face, like he wanted to say something
but couldn’t remember what, or how to say it. His eyes still held that blank expression, but
for brief moment, it felt like he knew me, like he remembered me, and then I started to feel
the pressure against my head, he began to squeeze, and it hurt. Until he stopped put his hands
in his lap and stared at the floor.
That’s the earliest memory I have of my Uncle Paul, I remember feeling scared because I
didn’t know what was going on, or why he started hurting me. I didn’t tell anyone. I kept the
memory for myself, because it was the only memory, I had of him.
As I stared at those pictures, I began to taste salt and my face felt wet. I started wondering
about my uncle and his slow decent into darkness, I wondered if this was how he felt as he
slowly forgot his entire life, years and years of memories and stories, of faces and voices,
disappearing into a void of black. Was he like me right now, and every time he heard a voice
or saw a face, would he try and find a memory about them? Find something, literally
anything to remember them by, so they could have some meaning to him other than just
emptiness. Is that what it felt like? Guilt and sadness flooded me after that. No one knew
where I was, so I snuck away to the bathroom. I cried, not out of sadness, not yet, it was guilt
that hit me first. The guilt of not remembering him, of never trying to until now, that made
me cry. The sadness of not getting to know him until years after I understood what was
happening to him, of not being able to say goodbye. To apologise for only knowing him
through stories. Borrowed memories from my family, the people who truly knew him, who
could say goodbye and feel sad about it. Memories that weren’t my own. What’s the point of
having the ability to remember if all the memories you make are taken away from you? Why
can’t you have the memories you make as child, why do those have to fade from your mind
as if they were nothing? If I had those, if I’d kept those precious moments in my mind from
when I was younger, maybe I’d feel sadder than when I did at the funeral, maybe I’d be
laughing with my family, sharing memories instead of wishing I was with him when those
memories were made.
I finished crying after a while, washed my face cold to get rid of the tears, the guilt, the
sadness. I calmed myself down and walked to the lounge room. My dad and his cousins were
drinking and laughing. My mum and aunties were talking. I sat beside my cousin; she’d
asked if I was ok. I said yes. She asked if I wanted to go to the beach in a few minutes. I said
sure.
Now I’m here. Sitting on the beach watching my cousins play in the water. Felt the breeze on
my skin, the salt from the air sticking to my face, my arms, in my hair. I watched as the
waves collided with the shore and retreated back to the ocean, a wide and open plain of blue.
My cousin came to sit beside me, she was soaking when and shivering from the breeze. I
handed her a towel and we watched the water in silence. Then I asked her.
“Do you miss your nonno?” she looked at me in confusion and said “Of course I do. Do you
miss him?”
“I can’t remember him Hayley. I don’t know if I can miss someone I can’t remember much
about” she still looked at me in confusion, and then sincerity as she said “I don’t remember
much about him either. I mean, he was my nonno and I loved him very much, most of what I
remember is when he started to forget, but I still made memories with him despite that. You
know that you you’ll never forget him right, as long as we remember him through our
parent’s stories, we’ll never forget him”
Despite myself, I couldn’t help but smile. Because looking back, she was right. It’s a funny
thing, memories. They come and go but they’re always there. Like the ocean, your mind is
wide and open, holding memories from years before your existence. Because they have been
passed down through family, friends, strangers. And with each wave that crashes on the
shore, you remember things you thought you forgot, but they’re still there. And they always
will be.