Reminding Myself to Stay Connected

As I approach the 75th year of my life, it’s not the future I worry about. It’s my mind—the current bane of my existence.

Simply put, I forget to remind myself. It could be a doctor’s appointment, the meeting that took place yesterday, a day after the fact. Might be a birthday or anniversary (woe-is-me!), paying a bill that’s overdue, or checking my calendar to make sure the dates are straight.

My pockets are bulging with reminders. My tables are covered with those yellow sticky notes. I’ve placed pertinent information by my shaving apparatus in the bathroom, only to have it go unnoticed.

“You’ve got to use your memory a bit more and not rely on notations,” I am constantly reminded. “Writing things down has always been my best secret for a good memory. Except now, I forget to jot these activities down or take an occasional peek at them.”

It was this way throughout my newspaper career, too. There were “stickies” up and down my cubicle that others would point to and laugh. In a business where deadlines are crucial and interviews are meant to be punctual, I was always on alert.

Proud to say that in my 50 years of journalism, I can count on one hand how many encounters I botched because of inertia. In more cases than not, it was usually the subject who forgot to keep an appointment.

One day in the office—if memory serves—I showed up for work ready to tackle some stories. I had my full day itemized accordingly. But something went awry. The place didn’t quite look the same. And it wasn’t!

Some culprit had taken the liberty of removing all my notes. There was not one single iota of evidence as to where I would begin to uphold my priorities.

Well, it didn’t occur to me that it was April Fool’s Day until some of my co-workers busted out laughing. I fixed the guilty party real good. When he wasn’t looking, I placed a note by his desk reminding him of an interview he never scheduled.

The guy shook his head trying to gather his senses. Had he made an appointment with the Sanitation Department and forgot?

Next thing I know, he called the number I had listed, apologizing to the superintendent about forgetting the appointment he never made. I got the last chuckle on that one.

My late pastor, God rest his soul, had an acute memory. You’d tell him something once and he’d never forget. He knew the first names of every communicant, every Sunday School student, every paid member, and the other priests in town.

He never forgot a telephone number, delivered every sermon candidly, every important function of his church, and every Feast Day verbatim.

The people in his church were amazed, myself included, that anyone could have such perfect recall. I asked him once about his eclectic sermons. Were they prepared in advance?

“Not likely,” he told me. “God gave me a gift to think on my feet. What I say on the altar comes from the heart as well as the mouth.”

He died a young man well entrenched in his ministry. If only I had half the mind.

A buddy of mine has the same problem, and he’s 20 years younger than me. He doesn’t even know what day it is sometimes. We were talking about the perils of memory loss one day and he had this to say.

“When you start to lose your memory, the best thing you can do is forget about it.”

There are instances when I never forget, however. The cousin who borrowed $50 from me and never paid me back. The rich uncle who said I was his favorite nephew and forgot me in his will. The schoolteacher who flunked me in social studies to keep me off the National Honor Society.

That’s all history now but has left an indelible mark.

Sifting through my notes right now, stuck to my mouse pad, computer, and desk molding are stories like the one you are reading now, telephone calls to return, and people waiting for an e-mail response. And that’s just the prioritized list on my right.

You don’t want to look at the left side. At some point, they will be shifted to the right.

I work off two appointment calendars, one in my kitchen and another in my office. On the other hand, I suppose, there are moments you may like to forget.

Like trusting your memory to take a short cut home and winding up 20 miles in another city. My train of thought had just become derailed.

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Tom Vartabedian

Tom Vartabedian is a retired journalist with the Haverhill Gazette, where he spent 40 years as an award-winning writer and photographer. He has volunteered his services for the past 46 years as a columnist and correspondent with the Armenian Weekly, where his pet project was the publication of a special issue of the AYF Olympics each September.