Context

About twenty-five years ago, before I could blame absent-mindedness on old age, I was minding my own business, strolling through a big-box wholesaler and shopping for nutrition essentials like ice cream and Oreos. I’d also tossed in a few canned vegetables so the girl at the checkout stand wouldn’t treat me with that subdued disdain that twenty-somethings are so good at.

Out of nowhere, up comes this short Asian lady and intentionally bumps her cart that’s chock-full of frozen okra and green beans, smack into my cart. While I’m biting my tongue and working to suppress negative mental stereotypes about Asian women drivers, she blurts out, “Hey Mister Lawson, how you been?”

And so, the quandary begins. She’s too young to have ever been one of my schoolteachers and I know she’s never been one of my clients. Maybe she’s someone from my old neighborhood. Crap! Did my kids wrap her house? Nope she’s being way too friendly for someone with a grudge. I force a smile.

Just as I’m getting a little tickle in the back of my brain about how I know her, she exclaims, “I told my dog, Butch, you said to say ‘Hi’.” And just like a fat kid in a candy shop, any hope of recognition darts down the aisle and around the corner. Now, I’m starting to sweat a little.

I even pull out my old faithful tool for cases like this and ask, “What have you been up to lately?” That almost always elicits a clue-filled response. “You know me,” she says, “nothing but work.” That fat kid in my brain is still off pilfering sweets on another aisle.

Finally, just as desperation is setting in, she reaches over the grocery cart that’s almost as tall as her and pats the frozen okra. “I get this just for you,” she declares, and in a magic instant, the fat kid returns and I realize I’m talking to the lady who owns a barbecue restaurant I visit weekly.

She meticulously cuts the fat off the brisket and scrapes it into a tub which she takes home for her dog — a dog I’ve often referred to as the luckiest dog alive though I’ve never known its name. On top of that, I always ask for fried okra as a side dish.

This woman made some of the best barbecue I’d ever had, and I talked to her at least once a week. I always treated her amiably when I saw her in her natural environment, but in a totally alien space, my brain simply refused to retrieve her identity. Don’t judge me. You know damn well you’ve done exactly the same thing on numerous occasions. And, just like me, you were too proud to confess your ignorance and ask their name.

A few years ago, I read “How Memory Works and Why Your Brain Remembers Wrong” by Gabrielle Principe (one of the Great Courses offerings on Audible). The book explained how our brains group memories in contexts — linking events, environments and meanings. Every single brain has a totally unique set of links to help remember shared human experiences.

So, there it is, I wasn’t senile, just human. We forget identities. But what is it about some people that causes us to wake up at night wondering how they’re doing even though we haven’t seen them in thirty years? They occupied an important enough space in our brain that they’re still lingering after years of absence.

Who is it that was important in your life at one time, but now you’ve almost forgotten them? What would happen if you picked up the phone and gave them a call to say how much they meant? Or, better yet, what if you wrote them one of those old-fashioned handwritten letters and documented their value to you at a critical time in your life?

Perhaps you should start that letter off with, “You might not remember me, but….”

Let’s get together for coffee before we forget each other’s name.

A meeting of great minds who think alike