By Elle Dooley

If you are an elder in an elder care setting, you will be asked to repeat three words and remember them five minutes later. I was asked to do this recently and it made me wonder how memory is formed.

What is a village? I’ve never lived in one but perhaps have read the charming descriptions of those places where people live cozily together, along a quaint but busy main street above shops that smell of sweets or roasting meat. The main street, where known and beloved shopkeepers greet you as you enter to pick up only what you need today. You encounter neighbors, loved and unloved. You gossip, have a little too much knowledge of everyone else’s affairs. There is as much forgiveness as pettiness, and it works because it must. The trees throughout the village gently reflect a sense of time passing as the seasons change. The whispering leafy buds of Spring, the lush leaves of Summer, fiery foliage of a cool Fall day and wind rasped clacking branches of Winter. The Village lives on through the seasons, holding you in its embrace.

The kitchen, the source. It is our sense of nourishment. It is warmth and comfort. In our sense memory, it has a fireplace and bread bakes near the hearth. A pot of bubbling stew is suspended over the flame. The large wooden table displays earthenware bowls of fruit. There is wood and stone and harvest. We feed our bodies and souls here. We share our secrets with whoever bakes the bread. We seek solace and nurse our wounds here. We come in to breathe the smells and take a break from – everything.

The baby, sweet and swaddled. Settling softly in my arms with a sigh and a hiccup. The feel of her hands and feet, the wisp of dark hair and the seashell ears. My love made manifest in another being whose soul now begins its earthly journey. Her beauty is something so precious, given to my care. What an honor. In a few months’ time, she’ll be a churning locomotive of desire for freedom, crawling away from me, later to walk and wander. She’ll make her own way. But she began with me, in the womb and then the arms.

This is the path of connection between three seemingly disparate words, meant to test my memory. I passed, this time. How could I do that when I misplace my keys every chance I get, or don’t remember to close the dishwasher when I leave the kitchen?

For me, each word taps a deep root of life experience. Created by events real or imagined the connection is the same. The word pulls at the heart of memory rather than the fact of mindful recall.

So, how do I remember five minutes later what my three test words are? I think of the Village, a beautiful container of all the lives within, the kitchen where those lives rest and find comfort, and the baby who is the tiny embodiment of all the Village holds dear and the kitchen sustains.

And so, for me, the three-word challenge is not a test of the mind but a call to the heart’s connection to meaning and memory. I passed, this time. As I begin my disconnection with this earthly plane, it’s possible I will lose my connection to the embodied spirit of the words. It’s also possible that I will take them in deep memory to my next life. I really don’t know. I would love to hear your thoughts.