the gift of memory's an awful curse

memory is a funny. it distorts things, get fuzzy almost immediately. they try not to use eye witnesses in criminal cases because they are so often wrong, remembered it wrong. "i guess i remembered it wrong. i was thinking my memory's strong but whatever you say"

i think about this because last night i saw a little boy on his bicycle get hit by a minivan. i rode to friendship to meet beth for dinner, and i ran into pete palasch as i was locking up my bike. we were talking and i heard a skidding and looked up to see a bike flying through the air. in my mind i can see the little boy fly through the air too, his little limbs limp and he tumbled to the ground, but then i can't tell if i just added that or really saw it. i know i saw the bike tumble in the air. i think i saw a shoe (he lost one when he was hit) i know i saw him lying on his stomach on the ground in front of the van, one leg straight the other leg bent. his feet weren't quite right. his arms up by his head. i think the bent leg is the one with the missing shoe. i remember the blood by his head. i remember his little cries as people tried to calm him down when he finally woke up. i remember telling the women on the phone where we were, that a little boy just got hit by a minivan, that she probably already had calls in. i remember his little face being bruises already and the cut that ran from about his left eye all the way around his forehead. the blood dripping from it. the older woman yelling at the man who hit the boy. the man who hit the boy saying 'oh god. why?' as he got out of his car, devastated that he hit a kid. i remember thinking 'why was a little boy riding on such a busy street? where are his parents? i bet he's scared to ride in the ambulance alone'. i remember the bandage around his head and the little neck brace they put on his to load him into the ambulance.

but i can't remember if i saw him in the air. such a small little detail, that doesn't even matter in the long run, but i keep going over it in my head. when i close my eyes, i see the bike in the air and his little limbs waffling around as he floated to the ground, but half of that might just be made up in my head.

i think we do this with everything. remember pieces and make the rest up in our minds. fill in the cracks with details that we wished happened, or would have preferred to have happened, or even didn't want to happen but were convinced did anyway.

did i really remember that look that he gave me? was i really right about what i saw? did i really say this or that?

memory is very deceptive. they say you only remember certain things after some amount of time passes, which is completely true. some people only remember the good things. some people only the bad. it's a tough thing to do...remember things correctly.