You Can't Control Your Memory Legacy

BY SYDNEY LANDER

We all like to think we'll be remembered for our charitable acts or outstanding contributions to society, but in my experience, it's our human foibles that endear us to others.

This was brought home to me recently when I met a pastor's wife who moved to our community. Since I graduated from the seminary where her father was a teacher who had taught my Old Testament class, she asked her parents if they remembered me. I would like to say that her Dad remembered me as a brilliant scholar, but he was not the one who remembered me at all. Instead, her mother said she recalled my name vividly.

It seems that during the height of a New Orleans flood, I made a call to the seminary and got her mother on the phone. I was headed for the seminary from downtown and had to travel through some deep water. My car made it through the water, but quit on the Interstate when I headed up hill.

I walked through the rain and down an off ramp into a fairly sleazy-looking neighborhood. I located a pay phone hooked to the outside of a closed bar. A few blocks away I could see a major intersection full of stalled cars abandoned in the deepening water. No one stirred on the side street where I stood, except a lone mailman trudging his way through the deluge. I guess he took his postal oath seriously, "Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow. . ."

When I got Mrs. Smith on the phone at the seminary, I explained that my husband was in class, having preceded me to school. I described the rundown neighborhood in which I was stranded, adding that I was pregnant and my car was broken down.

She remembers me because she ventured out into the downpour to find my husband and send him to my rescue. The female Sydney is forever branded in her memory as the poor pregnant girl standing in the rain hoping for a knight in shining armor.

Another incident that endured me to strangers was a three-minute testimony I gave before I was sent out as a summer missionary. A commissioning service was held at the state convention for all of the Louisiana students who would serve that summer. I wish I could say that I said something so profound that people were unable to erase it from their memory. Unfortunately this is not the case.

When I called the state convention office several years later and identified myself to the receptionist, she said, "Oh, I remember you. You went to Alaska as a summer missionary." She admitted, though, that she remembered me because of the levity I provided at the commissioning service.

Since so many of us were being sent out, several of us were chosen to give three-minute testimonies. The others simply gave the basic information: their name and the place they were being sent.

Why they asked me to talk for three minutes, someone who was petrified to speak in front of groups, is anyone's guess, but they did. I had to submit a written copy of what I planned to say. I memorized the written testimony before I tendered it. The person who reviewed it suggested one change. I inserted the recommended statement and committed it to memory.

Before the service, we were told that it was not unusual for novice speakers to have lapses in memory and that under no circumstances were we to go back to the beginning. The first speaker from each school would tell what school was represented and how many students were going as summer missionaries. David was going that summer too, and he was in front of me. He introduced Louisiana College.

"I am David Lander from Louisiana College," he said. "There are five of us going out this summer. I will be going to the Philippines."

I was next. I gave my name and destination and began my memorized testimony. When I came to the place where I made the change, my mind went absolutely blank. I looked over at David in desperation with a mute plea for help. He leaned over to the mike and did just what we had been told not to do. He went back to the beginning.

"Hi, I am David Lander from Louisiana College," he said.

The audience immediately dissolved into laughter. Some were laughing so hard, they had to be picked up out of the aisles, while others broke out their hankies. The levity broke the tension and triggered my memory. When the laughter died down, I was able to complete my testimony.

The receptionist was at the service. Even after a couple of years, she remembered the name Sydney, not because I had a riveting testimony, but because I blundered, and David saved the day.

I would like to think that I will be remembered as a columnist because of the spiritual applications of my stories, but the public response tells me otherwise. People who stop me to comment invariably remember me as the woman who scrapes her toast every morning or the lady who tries on secondhand clothes in airport bathrooms.

So as you go through life, know that you will be remembered, but you have little control over the selective memories of others. Try to put a bit of levity into the lives of those with whom you come into contact, they may just remember you for it. [As I bid you, my readers, adieu, I hope that we shared a laugh and that the levity I brought helped lessen life's bumpy landings.]

#

I inserted brackets around the final sentence for a reason. This farewell column was longer than my normal space, but the magazine decided to print the complete thing rather than editing it, as was their custom. Since the column did not fit in the allotted space, they jumped it to a back page. At the bottom of my usual page, the column ended with "mute plea for help. See Bumpy Landings pg. 32."

The problem was that the editor forgot to include the remainder of the column on page 32. The day the magazine was delivered, the phones began to ring. Readers wanted to know where the rest of my column could be found. Apologies were issued, and a promise was made that the entire column would be reprinted in the next issue. One irate woman insisted that she could not wait a month to read the end of the column.

"You can't just leave me hanging," the woman said. "She's standing on stage and can't remember her lines. What does David do?"

"Well, ma'am, I don't know. We'll both have to wait until next month to find out."

"That's unacceptable. I want to talk to the editor. What's his name? George something."

"That would be George Lapmann."

"Yes. That's him. I want to speak to him."

The woman was passed off to a staff writer. She refused to be appeased. Eventually she talked to Lapmann. To placate her, he pulled the column up on his computer screen and read the end of the column to the woman.

"What does she mean, bid her readers adieu?"

"Well, ma'am," Lapmann said. "This is her last column for our magazine."

"Will she still be writing for other publications?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I only make the decisions for our magazine."

"So, you're dropping Life's Bumpy Landings?"

"Yes, ma'am. We've decided to go in another direction."

"That's too bad. She's the best thing you have going. I'll be looking for a magazine that continues her column. Good day, sir."

The editor put down the phone. He buzzed the receptionist. A harried voice identified the publication and asked him to hold. After he drummed his fingers for 30 seconds, a breathless voice said, "How can I help you?"

"This is Lapmann. Why was I put on hold?"

"I'm sorry, sir. It's a madhouse down here. I didn't even notice it was your line I was answering. The phones have been ringing nonstop for the last hour."

"Why the sudden influx of calls?"

"Our readers are looking for the end of Life's Bumpy Landings. It seems we forgot the jump."

" I know. I just read the end of the column to an irate reader. How many calls have we gotten?"

" At least 50 so far, and the magazines just started arriving in the mail."

" Tell any additional callers that we will print the column in a special mail-out and send it to all of our readers later this week."

The column went out without the sentence in brackets. George Lapmann called me and told me the story of the irate readers. He apologized for his haste in canceling my column. After the story of the jammed phone lines was told to the parent company, my book deal was reinstated. Instead of having me do a book tour to promote the book, they used testimonials from my readers. The first that aired featured the woman who refused to hang up until the end of my column was read to her over the phone.

When I quit pouting and let God give me a peace about my pregnancy, I was able to receive the blessings that came with it. I was able to advance my writing career while remaining at home with all of my children. To this day, I believe that everyone benefited from the arrangement. I continued to meet my boys' friends because our house was one of the few where there was an adult after school. A whole gang would hang out where they got homemade cookies – my only culinary accomplishment – and could play a game of ping pong or street hockey or spoons, depending on who showed. Faith profited from having Mom around, and her friends, too, were at the house, even when she was a preschooler. I became the unofficial playgroup Mom for others who needed a place to bring their kids for an hour or two. David kept his connection with the children in the evenings, allowing me some time to write.

#

Suddenly Faith had an epiphany. She could use Mama's unwanted pregnancy as an illustration when she talked to the pregnant girl. She marked the page she'd just read. She wanted to commit to memory what Mama had written: "When I quit pouting and let God give me a peace about my pregnancy, I was able to receive the blessings that came with it." While the girl's situation was drastically different, the truth was the same. If you gave God your burden, He could bring a blessing from what appeared to be a curse.

"Have I been pouting?" Faith wondered. Bowing her head, she voiced a quick prayer. "I know You want to bring something good from Aaron's tragic mistake, God. I'm still not sure what part You want me to play, but help me to be still and listen."

In her mind the words echoed, "Love never fails."

#

I have discovered that it really is 'all a matter of perspective.'

#

Faith burst out laughing. "Okay, God, you win. I'll try looking at things from a different perspective."

#

Towards the end of my pregnancy with Faith, I was helping two women decorate for the wedding reception of their children. The newly weds were their respective 'babies.'

As I waddled by, the mother of the bride looked at me and said to the mother of the groom, "I don't know how she's going to do it, having a baby at her age."

I didn't really see 35 as that old. I knew plenty of women who had their first child that late, and this was my third. As far as I was concerned, the only problem with my pregnancy was that it was unplanned. I thought I was done with diapers when, "Surprise!"

"I know what you mean," the mother of the groom replied. "I was too old when I had my last child. I just didn't have the energy. It's certainly best to have your children when you're young."

"I agree. I was entirely too old when my last baby came along."

"Just how old were you?" I asked.

"Twenty-four," they answered simultaneously.

"Twenty-four!" I echoed. "I didn't even have my first child until I was 25, and I thought I was starting a bit young!"

I quickly did the math. The baby I was carrying would be 20 when I was 55, so I would have an empty nest before I reached retirement age. If my child followed her mother's lead, my grandchildren would start arriving when I was 60. No problems there.

I didn't discover the real difficulty until Faith was five. Her brothers encouraged her to join the tyke soccer team. They had both played soccer at a young age. I dutifully became a soccer Mom, once again. The quandary surfaced when I decided to assist Faith with her soccer skills in our backyard.

After only five minutes of chasing a five year old up and down the yard, I was winded. Then my right knee decided it was time to introduce me to 'Arthur.' I felt a stabbing pain like a white-hot knife in my knee joint. I lost my balance and ended up in the grass. I knew both of my parents suffered from arthritis, but I had no idea that Arthur carried a concealed weapon.

The next morning, as I was serving breakfast, I turned quickly to do the Mommy spy bit and catch Zach feeding his breakfast to the dog. The blade went into my knee again. This time I managed to stay upright, but the pain didn't ease. I ended up in the emergency room. The doctor informed me that I had arthritis and would have to learn to live with unexpected stabbings. He did offer me an arthritis medication to help me through the transition.

I refused it because the medicine is toxic to the liver in one percent of the population. My mother is among that minority. When she took the medication for four days, she lost about 70 percent of her liver function. Her doctor told her that if she hadn't voluntarily stopped the medication, she would've died. Luckily, the liver is the one human organ that will regenerate itself, and Mama's liver regained 90 percent of its original function. With my history of being in the one percentile of things medical, I wasn't willing to risk taking the meds.

I began to pay attention to the message my knees were sending. I learned to quit trying to turn on a dime. I discovered that if I locked my knee, I might have trouble getting it unlocked, and while I tried, Arthur would gleefully torture me with his dagger.

Perhaps those wedding Moms had something after all. Thirty-five might be a poor age to add to your family, but not because of an energy problem. My energy was fine. My physical agility, though, was beginning to suffer from the aging process. Fortunately, Faith had two older brothers to teach her the intricacies of soccer. I cheered them on and offered lemonade.

#

Closing the fourth journal, Faith snuggled down into her bed. "I wonder if Arthur will play havoc with my knees?" she thought. "Probably so, but maybe I'll get to live long enough to be a grandma. Mama didn't ever get the chance, and she would have made a great grandma. I guess my kids will be lucky that their grandma was a writer. They can read her book and the scrapbooks full of columns when they want to get to know her. When they're old enough, they can even read her memoirs." Faith's last thought before she fell asleep was, "Unless Zach's right and there are some deep dark secrets yet to come."