Memory Crash: When It Happens to Humans

The girl worker came in to use the toilet. Mom was inside.

“Mom…err…,” I was pausing and struggling to find it in my head. Even though I worked hard to hide it, she still could sensed it easily. She had a sharp eye.

“Umi..” she quickly uttered, ending my strenuous effort.

“Mom…Umi wants to use the toilet,” I raised my voice a bit so that mom can hear me. At the same time, feeling awfully miserable unabled to recall her name.

“Forgive me…” I looked at her.

She raised her eyebrows, questioning the reason. I was sure she knew why but she was trying to be nice to me, pretending not to understand it. I pointed at my head. My lips mumbled for a second, making the next struggle which was now was to find the right word to explain to her.

“I forgot your name. Last time I forgot mom’s name,” I managed to find a good explanatory example. Her eyes were wider.

“It happens. Early this year, I was filling in a form. It asked for mother’s name and I forgot her name,” I looked at her, unconsciously making another regret face.

“Oh…,” she nodded, digesting the information well. I took that as a sign of apology accepted, too.
“That’s why I can’t go to class and took study leave. Anyone who doesn’t know me won’t understand this. They would have thought I’m being ignorant.”

* * *

Well…that was the latest incident. It was today. To be precise, it was just a few minutes ago. And I'm writing this with some pain in my chest, swallowing the bitter taste of fact and evidence of my current condition, for countless times.

My memory is not working well. People would have claimed they have bad memory as much as I do but believe me…mine is nothing like yours.

We can tolerate forgetting the things we learn in class. We can bear the incidents where we can’t recall the name of our former classmates during high school. We can misplace things.

But being unable to recall what year it is? Unlikely to happen to anyone normal. Unsuccessful to differentiate between front and back is funny enough, let alone the failure to recall your own mother’s name.

While I was in campus, someone came knocking on the door, smiling and telling me that they were selling selendang. I was having confusion with that particular word.

It sounded familiar. So common. But I can’t figured out what it is.

As I was not refusing, they showed me some. I was a little bit disturbed.

Selendang is a type of headgear commonly used everywhere in Malaysia. It is part of my daily culture, my routine life. And it is a word in Malay, my mother tongue, my native language.

It wasn't English, it wasn't Arabic, it wasn't Japanese. It wasn't in any languages I'm still learning. It was my very own native, first language I've known since I was a little girl.

I realized my condition was not getting any better even though I was fighting hard to remain in campus.

My heart hurt. I knew I had to apply for study leave.

p/s: This is one of the driving force for my interest in Psychology. Memory is one of the subject matters. I intend to master every single piece of knowledge available, inside or outside class. It's part of my embedded defense mechanism. I've chosen to fight, not to flight.