You know, my aunt is now well over 80, she lost her mom when she was 5, and one day she told me that she kept and carried through the long decades of her life just one single memory of her mom. As she walks along the parapet that encloses the city railway station, holding mom's hand, and they laugh joyfully together...
This story at the time made me think - what will we really leave in the memory of our children? What moments, good or bad, will remain decades later, when we'll no longer walk this Earth, and our aged kids will tell their own stories about their parents? And why is it so important to create this warmest magic in our kids' childhood?
For some, it will be a joint trip to a theme park, some will definitely remember their first baseball or football game, and for others, some small, seemingly insignificant gift will pop up in their memory - long since finished its days in a broken form, but no less memorable. Such is the specificity of our human memory...
"Yes, human memory is in fact very selective - especially when it comes to our childhood memories," says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, whom Bored Panda asked for a comment here. "By and large, we remember not so much facts and events from childhood, as emotions, our reaction to these events."
"That's why, for example, someone can completely forget a lot of fancy gifts that they were literally showered with as a kid - but at the same time, some trinket bought by dad at a gas station during a trip together will stick in our memory. Because this little gift actually 'triggers' a good memory of the time spent together in our head."
"After all, who are we if not a collection of memories that largely define any human's personality? Each of us has our own magical childhood memories - and it's in our power to create the same, if not better, for our own children," Irina concludes.
Okay, words are words, but the most important thing here is, of course, emotions. So, please, read these sweet and magical stories, share your own memories in the comments to this post... and if you also have children, treat them to something nice today! Who knows, maybe decades from now, this day will be remembered as the most magical in someone's life?
