Do you remember?

"Do you remember?"

A small hope-filled voice asks with expectancy written all over her face. "Do you remember when Baba was little, and used to play soccer? That was so much fun!"

Of course I don’t remember; I didn’t know her father when he was younger, we met when I was 30, and he was 32. Our daughter certainly hadn’t been born!

She often reminds us of events that took place before she was born. Events she’s been told about or seen photos of. Like the operation I had when her older brother was born, or the time her brother and father acted out the story of David and Goliath at church.

Remembering is a strange, yet powerful concept.

Scientists suggest that we have little memory before the age of 2, and fragmented, limited memories between the years of 2 and 7.

She’s currently three.

Will she remember anything that is happening in her life now?

Are we spending time making memories that won’t be remembered in the years to come?

Do I need to remember everything that happens in her tiny years in case she forgets?

Who will remember her first pony ride, her fist climb up Table Mountain, or the first time she swam across the pool solo?

Will she? Will it matter if she doesn’t?

Will she have a phone app that pops up location memories on a daily basis? What if I’m not around to remind her of the hilarious things she says? How? What? Why Is this even important?

Memories are important to her. Whether it’s her own or another’s, I want her to build a happy memory bank, to protect her from hard times and painful memories. At the moment, the most painful memory she has is of the time that "Mum was so mean, she didn’t share her chocolate with me!" (Now before you feel sorry for her, she’d already ‘stolen’ my chocolate bar and was disgruntled that I fearlessly held on to my last remaining piece of chocolate as she attempted a further heist at 5am!)

Compared to the limited, priceless photo albums I have of my childhood, she already has a plethora of photos stored in various clouds linked to email addresses for visual memories of the mundane and the more unusual.

I want to be intentional with memory creation; I know that’s a privileged statement to make and I don’t use it lightly. I have my own vivid memories of Sunday evenings with my dad when mum went to church. We would play tag off-the-ground, using living room furniture as safe places, (yes things got broken), but we connected with our dad over this game before collapsing in a huddle listening to him read Pilgrims Progress, or another chapter book.

This memory shouts privilege: my parents were, and still are, in a loving marriage.

We lived in an area where it was safe enough for my mum to walk to church in the dark, in the evening. My dad read, encouraged books and reading in our house, and our house had furniture that lent itself to the occasional game being played with it. Note to self when I tell my own kids 30 years later that our sofa is NOT a horse for the 100th time!

I don’t know how my mum felt about the furniture being used in this way, I choose not to know because I don’t want anything to ruin the memories of Sunday evenings, the time spent with my dad and sister.

I will hold onto the good memory and do everything in my power to create further memories for our children; memories not based on spending money and having things or experiences of monetary value, but on being together, and laughing, on doing life side by side.

When our three year old is older, I hope she has a memory bank, filled with love and laughter, with memories to pass on to her own family and that the phrase "do you remember when…?" brings joy to those in her world.