MEMORY OBSERVATION

Last month, William Shatner was being interviewed on a Chicago radio station. He was on to promote his new book, Leonard, a retrospective of his life with Star Trek co-star Leonard Nimoy.

He wrote the book as a tribute to his late friend. But in the process, he had an interesting observation on life.

He said that people share experiences with friends. And in order to remember them, re-live them, they have to be together - - - "do you remember the time we did such and such?" Then laugh about it.

He said those conversations keep those memories alive.

But once someone dies, a person loses that connection to the other person. Those strong memories begin to fade because the deceased friend is no longer around to share them with you.

That was why Shatner wrote the book. It keeps his memories of Nimoy alive in a tangible form.

This is a deep observation that makes logical sense.

Our memories fade of lost loved ones because we don't see them anymore. A daily, weekly, monthly or annual face-to-face helps reinforce past memories because you re-connect with the person, their face, their voice, their mannerisms, their personality, and humor. The stronger the bonds between two people, the clearer the memories will be retained.

So when we lose people, at some point we will lose the memories of those departed souls.

That is a sad dilemma. You want to remember. You need to remember.

We have things to help us remember. Family photograph albums. Pictures speak a thousand words. Grave stones. We visit the departed to pay our respects and to remember their life. Their children and siblings. They are the living images of their departed family members.

If you are a film star, friends can find  the permanent footage of your acting career. It helps ease the problem of losing touch.

But those are mere substitutes for the real thing. The real experiences in life hold more meaning than just mere memories. But at a certain point, memories are the only things left to hold on to.

In LOST, there was the odd notion that the main characters "forgot" their island past while "living" in the sideways world. Perhaps, they lost their memories because people died and they faded from conscious memory.