Clive Wearing, the man without memory who lives off love and music

“Always the same… it seems that I don’t learn”, “it seems untrue, the same story happens to me over and over again”… How many times have we not said those phrases and how many times do we swear and promise that we will learn from the experiences we have lived or at least Will we try to change something to improve? What happens to our memory? But what if we didn’t even have the conscious opportunity to do so?

The memory, Among other things, it plays a fundamental role in strengthening the famous learning promises and our expectations about people or situations. If this does not work as it should, we have before us an abyss of difficulties in social, work and family adaptation.

Clive Wearing doesn’t stand a chance. It is the example of misfortune where a man lives in the same week, the same day and the same minute over and over again. Despite everything, something keeps him tied to the world: love and music.

“We are our memory, we are that chimerical museum of inconstant forms, that pile of broken mirrors”

-Jorge Luis Borges-

The traps of chance

As bad luck would have it, being Clive Wearing, a renowned conductor, contracted a virus in March 1985. A virus that unfortunately put its target on the musician’s brain, transforming what could have been an ordinary cold into a herpes simplex encephalitis.

Specifically, this virus affected the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for directing and controlling our short and medium-term memories.

Mr Wearing was not only a conductor, but also a pianist, choir director and in charge of a music program on BBC radio. His whole life vanished at the moment when, because of the virus, memory became an enemy instead of a companion of life.

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Human beings have different types of memory depending on the content, retention time and the way in which we handle information and retrieve it. In Clive’s case, several memory systems were seriously damaged.

“Memory is the sentinel of the brain”

-William Shakespeare-

The memory blackout

According to the chronicles of that time, it seems that a strong flu hit North London. The first symptoms indicated that Clive had fallen ill like almost the entire population of the area. However, after four days with a very high fever, he lost consciousness. When he woke up, he did not remember his wife. It took him a while to recognize her again.

The doctors did not know what was happening, making it the strangest case they had ever seen. How did a tireless working man, with a high pace of life and without rest, suddenly appear to them as a helpless and vulnerable being? Confusion and anguish dominated those first days after the memory blackout.

After weeks and months of bewilderment, auditory hallucinations, uncertainty and testing, they found that Clive only retained nine information for between seven and thirty seconds. It is currently known as the most extreme case of amnesia in the world. It deletes everything almost automatically after it happens. He has no memories of his previous life and there is little point in telling them. She will forget them again.

“In case you don’t know, that’s what life is made of, just moments; Do not miss the present”

-Jorge Luis Borges (fragment of “Instants”)-

At the time, he began to write a diary in which he wrote down the time and the feeling he had at that moment. She has maintained this activity over the years to seek coherence and meaning in her life. Despite her efforts, The feeling is always the same: first time seeing the newspaper.

Even if he sees any previous notes, he will not recognize those moments or remember himself writing the sentences that describe them.

Frustration, anguish and aggressiveness have been reduced over the years. Nowadays he doesn’t mind questions about people or things he’s supposed to know. Simply, he accepts the situation and tolerates it in an exercise of incredible emotional adaptation.

love and music

As time went by, the difficulties of coexistence and feelings of frustration caused his wife to distance herself from him. Still losing contact, he emigrated to the United States in search of a new life. However, he could never forget Clive. He returned to the UK, they renewed their marriage vows and settled near the brain injury home where he remains cared for.

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Despite having lost his memory and being unable to remember his wedding day, Clive knows that he is married to her. He knows that she is his woman, he knows that he loves her. Without memories of specific episodes of their life together, at the bottom of their being, the memory and sensation of affection and love remain.

“The memory of the heart eliminates bad memories and magnifies the good ones, and thanks to that artifice, we manage to cope with the past.”

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez-

And your day to day life? No movies, no books…. is unable to follow a scene or dialogue. However, there is something different: music, his other passion in his life, apart from his wife. He does not know that he could recognize musical notes and does not remember that he has conducted orchestras at important events. However, sitting at the piano he is able to follow a piece of music, letting his fingers speak over his memories and his consciousness.

Two documentaries have been filmed, many articles have been written and many people have approached Clive’s case. Despite the particular nature of his case, empathizing with him and his family is not difficult at all.

In the end, emotions speak over diagnoses. The gestures of affection, patience and kindness that surround a situation born of frustration, anger and the feeling of injustice, show the extraordinary capacity of human beings to overcome unimaginable obstacles.