As I grow older I find that some of my abilities and functions are slowing down.  One part of me, however, is becoming more active.  That’s my forgetter.

This morning (30 March 2016) I stepped out the door to start the car to get it warmed up for our weekly trip to the temple.  I grabbed my temple bag so that I could put it into the back seat.

As I stepped out the door I was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn’t particularly cold.  It was above freezing.  There was a beautiful, waning half moon in the sky.  Robins were singing.  It was beginning to dawn in the east.  The sky was cloudless and beautiful.  The north wind that we’d had all day yesterday was gone.  I threw my bag into the car, and went back in to tell Marjorie what a beautiful morning it was.

As I started to describe the morning, something suddenly hit me.  I’d forgotten to start the car!  That was my whole reason for going outside in the first place.  How bad is that?

Just before we left on our mission I had a gall bladder attack.  It was perfect timing—a blessing really.  It could have happened over in Vanuatu where there were no medical facilities that I would have wanted to trust for such an operation.

Marjorie’s brother had one of the last old-style gall bladder operations.  It had required a long slit in his abdomen.  Recovery took months.  Some years later when my father had his gall bladder operation, procedures had improved.  He only had three tiny scars on his abdomen to show where instruments had been inserted to remove his gall bladder.  His recovery required just several days.

Looking over my own anatomy recently, I could discover no scars.  I struggled to remember my surgery that had taken place less than three years before.

Finally I went to my wife and asked, “How did they get my gall bladder out?”

Without hesitation she replied, “Through your navel.”

“Oh,” I said.  That made sense.  “I don’t remember a thing about the Boise hospital, though,” I added.

“Your surgery wasn’t done in Boise,” she said.  “Don’t you remember?  It was done in Ontario.”

“No!  Really?”  I can’t remember a thing about it.”

“Do you remember who recommended the doctor there?  It was Doctor Richards who said that he knew a good man to do the surgery.”

I couldn’t have told you anything about that.

“I checked you in, and they told me that you’d be out and under anesthesia for two hours, so I went shopping at JoAnn’s.”

This was all news to me.  As far as my memory is concerned there’s not a thing there to tell me that I’d ever had a medical procedure done in Ontario, Oregon.

What’s wrong with me?  Did I delete a potentially disturbing memory?  That surgery was nothing.  No recovery time was necessary.  I just came home and went back to my normal activities the next day.  I only remember being glad to be rid of my gall bladder.  It was an unnecessary organ.  It had been packed full of gall stones, and was so painful that I’d been afraid to eat anything for a week before my surgery.  I was glad to get rid of it.  That much I remember, but otherwise I have no memories or scars to tell me that it ever happened.

It seems like I recently had another memory problem that I wanted to include here—but I’ve forgotten it.

Why do I write?  It’s because of my forgetter.  If I don’t record things the memory is gone forever.  My wife doesn’t have such an organ, therefore, she doesn’t have to write.