I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia by Su Meck Page A

just as quickly, it was ruthlessly closed.
    My brain was not in the habit of bestowing such gifts. Instead it was more often inclined to take away. During that same visit to Houston, Mom remembers coming upon me lying on the floor in the family room behind the wet bar. She thought it was an odd place for me to take a nap, but when she saw my eyes were open, she became alarmed. My parents weren’t used to my lightning, but Benjamin, who was just two at the time, said something like, “Oh, it’s all right, Grandma. She’ll wake up in a few minutes.” It happened again later in the week. My dad arrived home from work one evening, walked into the kitchen, and found me curled up in the corner of the large walk-in pantry. He looked at Mom and said, “What’s going on?” Mom replied, “She did this earlier. Just leave her alone and in a little while she’ll get up and come out of it.”
    Me at my parents’ piano. Later, after my accident, I would play “The Entertainer” by heart on it.
    All that week, I kept asking for Jim several times a day. But when he finally did arrive the following Saturday afternoon, my mom says I had no idea who he was; in fact, I was afraid of him. Jim says he saw in my eyes instantly that I had once again forgotten him. Of course he was upset by that realization, but what could he do? Apparently, I made my younger brother, Mark, come with us on a walk that evening, because I did not want to be alone with this tall, curly-headed stranger.

    A few days after returning home to Fort Worth, Jim sat down with me and taught me how to shave my legs. In fact, he taught me (and retaught me again and again and again) most of what I know about personal grooming. Come to think of it, Jim taught me pretty much everything I know about almost everything. Several weeks (or maybe it was months) later, there was even an awkward conversation about sex. I didn’t exactly understand when he tried to explain what it meant to be a “mother” to Benjamin and Patrick. And being a “wife” to Jim was even more beyond my comprehension.
    I suppose once upon a time, three years before, Jim and I had fallen in love. After the accident, I had no concept of “love.” I knew Jim was there, and I quickly became dependent on him, and later became dependent on the boys, but I didn’t really know him very well. I didn’t know the most basic things about him, like what he enjoyed doing in his spare time, what his favorite foods were,what genre of books he liked to read, what music he liked to listen to, and hundreds of other little details. I can’t be certain, but I don’t think I even really cared so much about any of that stuff, either. I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to care. However, Jim somehow still loved me. He still knew me, or at least the “me” I had been, which still looked like me. He knew everything about me; what I liked to do, eat, read, listen to, as well as every other trivial detail. But was I still that same Su? Hell no! Not by a long shot!
    Jim loves telling me the following story:
    I knew something was terribly wrong between you and me, but I could never put my finger on it. And then one day it hit me. It was less than a year after the accident. We had just kissed, and I felt you pull away with a look in your eyes that I had seen before but had never comprehended. You no longer had a husband, a lover, or an equal partner in an adult relationship. You didn’t get what any of those things meant. Instead, I was someone you could lean on. I was someone who could explain and teach things to you. Our relationship was no longer marital—instead it was familial. And the look on your face after that kiss was a look of discomfort, awkwardness, and even a little disgust. I was no longer your husband. I was more like a big brother. And it felt wrong somehow for you to kiss your big brother that way .
    Jim remembered our love from before the accident, and he missed it. He tells me that when we were