Do you have any part of traumatic memory which you deliberately try to forget it? I already have the answer of it for myself. Yes, I do!
I had those of inauspicious awful nightmares a couple of years ago. It was so painful that I wish I could completely delete that part of my memory forever. I’m so scared of recalling it and I try to forget it. It’s just like throwing something you strongly dislike or unwilling to touch to a corner which is not often visible from oneself. The stuff is still there but just that one try not to look at and touch it.
If it's a physical object, it would be better since it could be trashed when one does not wish to keep it anymore. Too bad that memories are not disposable and one might just step onto it from time to time. The trigger points usually for me are the loneliness in the darkness. Whenever I feel alone in the quiet darkness, that memory usually comes and haunts me.
On last Sunday night, those traumas came alive again while we were on the way back home from Yosemite National Park. While we were driving back home on Highway49, there were hardly no car ahead and behind us except a couple of cars from the opposite lane every now and then. Both sides of the freeway had almost no residential areas. The girls were sleeping in the back seats while he was focusing on the driving. The quietness, darkness and loneliness had suddenly triggered my mind with those traumatic awful memories. My eyes were gathered with tears in no time and I suddenly felt suffocated. While swallowing the hardship, I immediately started to digress it by talking to him so that I could drive it away.
I still remember that terrible feeling when I first saw the pictures of you in the hospital during your last days, Mama. You shrunk almost half size of yourself and all the sufferings you were having were obviously reflected on your face. Your hazy eyes proved me no doubt that you weren’t at your full consciousness due to those cruel tortures. Those brown patches on your arms due to the injections and dripping of medication appeared so terrible. Your full and plump arms were so saggy from shedding drastic weight from your sufferings. I didn’t have courage to look further whilst my tears broke helplessly. They were so terrible that it left such a deep impression in my brain.
And when all those stories which I heard from the youngest uncle were linked with those pictures on my mind, it was beyond words to describe exactly how I felt by then. Connecting all those dots together were the only clues for me to envision how you would be like in the hospital. Every time I do it, I felt so traumatized that I wish I could delete that portion and would not have to do it again.
I still remember the moment when I let you listen to Htoo Eain Tin’s “May May Nay Kaung Lar (Mother, how are you?)” song for one last time via the telephone when you gained your consciousness back. I was so much devastated by the sadness and all different sort of awful feelings that I felt so blank and felt like not touching the ground.
I felt so regretted for not being able to be by your side during your last days, Mama. But on the other hand, I’m somehow grateful for not seeing the actual scenes and all your sufferings personally when I think of it now since I do not have the heart to bear to witness all of them.
The memory I have is a beautiful, proud and strong Mama whom I always know of. This is the image I always have for you on my mind, Mama. If I were to see the scenes of all of your terrible struggles during your moment, they would definitely disturb and deteriorate my fine memory of you. I only want to remember the good and happy things but none of those tragic memories, Mama.
At the same time, since I didn’t see you leave me, it’s sometimes still so hard to accept the fact that you are no longer in this world. I sometimes till feel like you’re still there, just at a far far away place from me. I know and I could not deny the truth but sometimes those hallucinations come up to my mind, perhaps just to cure my trauma tentatively I guess.
As such I try to delusion myself not to go and touch that part of my memory. As such I become acquainted with the fear of darkness over time, just to avoid that terrible fear in the darkness.
