Memory and the Soul

The article on Alzheimer's really touched me. I have heard stories like this one many times but I never cease to be shocked every time I think about how someone could lose their memory. Remembering the past is something which I value a lot! This is why I love photos and why I tend to save things like ticket stubs, programs from events and other random stuff.

My grandfather suffered a couple strokes and as he aged, he began to lose his memory. I actually grew up never really knowing him that well because of this. Even though he was stuck in the past, I still got a good sense of his character; he was still Benedict Winchester.

I believe that even when memory is lost, the soul is still there and this is what makes a person. In the article, the woman remembers to go to midday mass although she has lost most of her memory. This example is not the only one that has ever been written about. I have read the book, "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Oliver Sacks and there is a story in it of a man who suffered from a disease which allowed him to remember the past vividly but to have no recollection of the present or near past. Sacks asked the caregivers at the Home whether they thought that the patient still had a soul and they told him to observe the guy in the chapel. Sacks did so, and was amazed at how focused the man was at mass.

These 2 people probably represent many others who demonstrate the way in which people may lose memory but not lose certain personal traits which people recognise them by. I believe that memory does matter a lot to identity because your history has a lot to do with who you are as a person; however I do not think that memory is solely responsible for one's identity. Even when people can't remember their past, their past is why they are who they are at present.

Sacks, Oliver. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. New York: Touchstone, 1998.