A child's memory can be a very funny thing. It can be almost eerily accurate in detail. Little children can picture or remember things that the adults around them can't remember twenty years later. Throughout my life I have always remembered little details about my great-great-grandmother's house, and my great-grandmother's house. Recently, I have been talking about them and my parents have said that they completely forgotten about these details or that they don't remember them at all. But, I am positive of these details.
However, a few years ago, I heard about a little trick that our mind plays on us. One of my teachers had to write a narrative in college and she was telling us about it. It consisted of a day where she had stayed home sick from school. Her father was a traveling salesman of some sort. She remembered driving in this pale green car that they had with him to a client's house. She explained in vivid detail the inside of the car, the client they visited, what he sold her, and the conversation the adult's had around her. When she asked her father to confirm the accuracy of these details, he told her that none of this had ever happened. Her mother and father both agreed that she had NEVER been to work with either one of them, especially a sales call with her father.
So it makes me think...are the details I remember about my grandmother's and their homes really real? As I got older, and heard stories about them, did I conjure up these images in my head to fit what everyone around me was saying? I still stand by my own reality, and my parents are sure of their facts. It is one of those things that maybe we'll never know if they've forgotten, because they were so used to their surroundings, or if I have completely made up these images.
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