We are always better at holding stories and it helps us save face. Think of a time in your life when a significant event has happened — like a baby’s birth, a parent’s death, or a marriage — and think of the song you heard on the day of that event. For your whole life you will never forget that song. It’s the same when you hear a story or wise talk

Aren’t we all doing it, one way or another? Selling our story? And much of it is attractive, even moving. Persuading your friends, you must see this or you must read that or you must meet so-and-so.

Memory is meant to be given. It isn’t held well alone. It is meant to be held in a collective and across generations. Memories that remain exclusive to a particular individual or even community are at risk of becoming false.

We want whatever it is that can help us draw the absent shape, we look for more information, more data points, an ever-greater accumulation of stories and remembrances. But the quest is never finished, the one who went away never returns. Slowly the bank of stories is depleted. The memories evaporate.