The value of memories

The value of positive memories is one of the main elements of stability, a refuge with an extraordinary capacity to protect us. Pío Baroja said that “To a large extent we are the extension of our past; the result of a memory“.

In this sense, the brain is an organ capable of storing, organizing and prioritizing all our memories. In fact, although it is outdated, in psychology the metaphor of the computer was used for many years to talk about the brain, and especially memory. A memory that is none other than the city of memories.

Psychologists indicate that all our memories have a very close relationship with emotions, That is why we are able to experience the original emotions again when we place them back in the focus of our attention. A pleasant memory can give us back that lost inner peace, restore that hurt self-esteem. On the other hand, if that experience results in a bitter memory, the last thing we will want to do is remember it.

The value of memories

A while ago I had in my hands a wonderful true story about the value of memories, an endearing encounter with the past after many years. In the month of May 2017, a 14-year-old boy, named Patryk Lessman, was spending a few days on vacation with his family in a summer house, on Lake Jeziorak (Poland).

The young man enjoyed building wooden cabins and fishing in the lake. One fine day, by chance, buried in a wooded area, found two old antique milk churns and quickly informed his parents of the discovery. They notified the local authorities, who returned to the scene with metal detectors in search of more objects.

A few months later, after carefully analyzing what was found, a press conference was called to report the discovery. The two milk churns contained personal belongings and family memorabilia of Count Hans Joachim Finckensteinowner of the property in the past.

They found numerous documents, including the count’s last will, the seal and the coat of arms of the Finckenstein family, (an old Prussian aristocratic family) and even Hans Joachim’s passport and his diary from the First World War. In the second can was his uniform from World War II and a multitude of letters and poems from his daughters.

Hans Joachim von Finckenstain was born in 1879 and lived through the two great wars. In the summer of 1944, faced with the Soviet advance, Hans Joachim and his wife Hildegard sent their daughters to Pomerania (territory between Germany and Poland) and they remained hidden in the area. The deposit of personal belongings dates back to that time, but it is not clear whether the father or the mother buried them.

Stories from those years: the possibility of generating them in these years

Investigators located Waldtraut, the count’s youngest daughter, who is currently 81 years old, in Germany. When she saw the objects found she was deeply moved. She clung tightly to her father’s sneakers and cried for a long time. She told reporters how, every night, her father would carry her and her sister up to the bedroom while they clung to her slippers and enjoyed laughing until sleep overcame them.

She still recited from memory some of the poems found, written by herself seventy years ago. With tears of joy in her eyes, she told the journalists who wanted to interview her: “I always wanted to write, my mother encouraged me to learn to sew and embroider, but it is clear that books were my thing”.

Waldtraut remembers the summer storms at Lake Jeziorak and the smell of wet earth. “ANDThose endless afternoons when we couldn’t go out because of the rain and I recited poems while my sister entertained the sunset with music; The whole family watched excitedly as they enjoyed the show. It was a wonderful part of my life that I now recover thanks to these memories”

This story reminds us of the beauty of squeezing time motivated by real, deep desires. It encourages us to lose the habit of postponing what is important, to stop hiding what we feel. It’s simple: every moment contains the magic that we impose on it.. If you could design your best memory, how would you do it?

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