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Stuart Revercomb

Stuart Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.

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"Thursday's Fare"

I awoke this morning to the following headline:

"Your mind starts going in your 20s, studies find"

Slow news day, huh.

20s? I had come to the conclusion that mine had started slipping at about 7 when a persuasive teacher convinced me for a brief period of time that math was somehow "fun."

There is, of course, nothing fun about math. Math stinks. But for a while there I searched pretty hard for the "fun" in it. I think I came close once counting my Halloween candy, but I lost my concentration at about 82 pieces and was never able to reestablish an accurate count. I guess the voters down in Florida know what I'm talking about.

I'm still looking for a "fun" math moment. Maybe one of my children will get the hang of it.

At 14, in a further indication that my faculties were beginning to leave me at an alarming rate, I began to accept the possibility that maybe girls didn't have "cooties" after all, and somewhere around the age of 17, I got the nerve to actually ask one out. We went to dinner and a movie and dessert after that, and then I took her home and she said, "Thank you," and closed the door.

I recall being out about 23 bucks and having not much more to show for it other than the memory of some awkward moments of silence. I continued to ask girls out every six months or so with similar results, which pretty much substantiates the contention that by one's 20s, we are mostly out of our minds.

I can recall some moments in college between the age of 19 and 23 when it was debatable whether I had any brain at all. Perhaps it's best if we don't highlight such memories here.

I know my mom will be happy with that decision.

I chose to read this morning's article even though I knew there was little likelihood that I would remember a single word by lunch time. To my surprise, the German scientist who conducted the studies and tests in support of the theory also came to the conclusion that older people compensate for memory loss with "the increased knowledge and wisdom that they have garnered over the years."

My only question: how does one use "increased knowledge and wisdom that is garnered over the years" if what is "garnered" is mostly forgotten beginning in one's 20s?

Wasn't that his first point?

I guess I never was very good at science either.

My 97-year-old grandmother has little memory of the "average" or more difficult moments of her life or even the ones five minutes ago that aren't in some way remarkable. But she can tell you all about the moment she first met my grandfather. Or about the time in 1921, in rural Pennsylvania before it was "appropriate" for women to drive, that she tucked her hair up under her father's hat and drove her four sisters to the State Fair two counties away.

She remembers with a guilty laugh the strange look on the young policeman's face as they motored through the front gate. She tells me she remembers that face like it was yesterday. She also remembers that the parking brake was extremely hard to release.

I'm thankful that God has given her such memories to keep and to share, and equally thankful that she has forgotten a great many more. For if we're honest with ourselves we'll admit that a great many moments in our lives just aren't worth remembering. Either we ourselves, those we love or the world around us has let us down in some sad way, and if we were somehow forced to hang on to such moments, we would surely one day perish beneath them.

Perhaps of all the things at Thanksgiving we should be "thankful for" is the promise that there is a God who has separated us from the painful memories that might otherwise haunt our past -- and who in turn has freed us to the hope and potential of a limitless future with him.

Thanks be to God, indeed -- for all we do, and do not have.