Memories make us what we are.

Without our memories we have no anchor, nothing onto which we can hold. We are adrift in life's ocean without map, compass, or stars to guide us.

Without our memories we know not who we are; where we have been; where we are hoping to go. We need the past so that we might have a future.

Without our memories of friends, lovers, acquaintances, rivals, those about whom we have cared, those who have hurt us, we cannot know ourselves.

Without our memories we are like newborn children, clinging, searching, wanting, needing, hoping.

Without our memories we cannot trust - ourselves or other people.

Without our memories we can trust too much, because we know not what or whom we should not trust.

Without his memories my beloved looks at me and sees an elderly man, a friend; nothing more.

Without his memories he hears my stories, but does not, cannot, finish them for me.

Without his memories he does not know he loves me. Does not know that I love him. Does not know that today is our anniversary - our thirtieth. And I will not tell him. I cannot tell him. The children, Tobias, even Jennifer, all tell me I should. But I cannot. How do you tell someone like Jethro that he is, that he was, involved with another man? How do you tell him . . .

Without his memories he is incomplete.

Without his memories I am incomplete.

Memories make us what we are.