One day you will be one of those who lived long ago. The earth shall remember you as it remembers the grass and the forests, the decaying leaves. As the ground remembers and as the mountain remembers the winds. Your peace shall be infinite like the sea.

Pär Lagerkvist

Memory from a long life is a treasure worth cherishing

Life is not the days that have passed but the days one remembers, wrote the Russian author Pjotr Pavlenko, died 1951.

”On devrait profiter de la présence de ceux gu´on aime, ne jamais remettre au lendemain, oser, interroger. Parce qut nous avons vécu trop peu de temps près de lui, j´ignore qui était notre père dans son enfance ou sa jeunesse” writes the author Lorraine Fouchet.

A word for us who have come in years to take to heart. We have many days and years to remember. Most of them have probably passed by without leaving any deep traces. Yet we older ones have much to look back on, happy memories as well as sad ones, from private life, work life, and leisure activities.

We shall live in the present and not on memory, but we should not for that reason throw our memories on the rubbish heap. They tell our lives in concentrated form. We all carry a wealth of experiences, knowledge, and insights.

Shall we disappear without a trace?

Will all this die with us? It feels like a waste of valuable assets that a line is suddenly drawn over them. Must we one day disappear not only physically but also literally without a trace? Our personal memories always remain, worth preserving by our closest relatives. But what we have known and learned, can it live on in some form? Or do the young think that what we old ones have said and done is nothing to learn from in these times of rapid change, and is that so?

"That's how mother did it," and "Father always said that....." Common reflections among the now oldest generation. Is the younger generation more arrogant and self-sufficient? I don't know, but they perhaps find it harder to calm down and just listen, stressed as they are by the ever louder impressions from various directions that press in on them.

But we were not much better ourselves. We often listened distractedly when our ancestors wanted to tell us things. Later we probably had second thoughts, but then it could be too late. Many of us now think like this:

- Such a shame that we didn't listen better when father and grandmother told stories. And why didn't we record it?

It is important that those who come after us do not make the same mistake. For without boasting, we dare to claim that no generation has experienced such great changes as we who are now pensioners have. That is truly something to tell about so that it does not fall into oblivion.

We who were born in the 1920s and 1930s and earlier have experienced completely enormous upheavals. We carry a treasure of memories that is incredible. When I was very little, there wasn't even radio – that might suffice as an example of the difference between now and then. And the conditions and working conditions of adults were so incredibly different from what they are now.

We lived a completely different life than today's young and middle-aged do. Yet it is not so far back that grandfather and grandmother in this age of computers can tell about it to their grandchildren – if they would listen. Later in life they may regret it if they now turn a deaf ear.

Record your memories.

Therefore it is a truly meaningful occupation for us older people to write down our memories or – even better – to record them on tape. The tape recorder is indeed an excellent tool for just this.

It works best if a younger person asks questions while you tell – hope you have someone who wants to. Consider what a contribution for the future you are making together.

An example: What an asset it would be for the genealogist to have in their store not only grandmother's and grandfather's personal data but also their voices! If we handle this right, someone a hundred years from now delving into the family's history can hear great-grandmother herself tell about life 150–175 years ago. So fantastic!

Let us hope that today's pensioners make good on what many of us have often thought: to write down or record our memories on tape – for the joy of future generations.

For remember that life is the days we remember. A memory of the departed families is a cultural heritage at least as valuable as the old buildings and objects. And these we always cherish tenderly. It is part of the legacy, just like gold and property, which are handed down to the children and the following generations.

It is strange to grow old. Inside, one is the person one has always been, but suddenly one notices that one can no longer manage things one could do before. That realization is difficult……

”Teach me to be small before the world”

O nightingale, I was once your equal –

What does it matter that I walk toward my autumn,

Now I am mute again and sink faintly

That I become lonely, gray and weather-beaten?

Back in the realm of anonymity?

A May night's melody has burst my breast”

It would be easy to die tonight.”

Hjälmar Gullberg

Memoria nostri durabit si vitam mervimus.

(The memory of us shall endure if we have made ourselves worthy of our life. Tacitus on Sixtus Julius Frontius)