"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."

-- Michel de Montaigne

I always found History fascinating. What I preferred was to try and understand what motivated people, what lead them to the actions and decisions they made. In my studies, the micro enticed me more than the macro; meeting with a merchant in Florence, during the Renaissance, learning of his life via what he wrote centuries ago in the margin of his ledger; learning about a village and its inhabitants while deciphering the notes on a cadaster; looking into the old notebook stored in my grandparents' attic...

There are stories that have never been told in my family. My teenage curiosity made me ask questions my older self would have refrained to. In these younger days, I thought I uncovered secrets I had been entrusted to keep. To keep them for myself, not talking about them outside of the one who confided in me. To keep them alive, in my memory.

I realized, with time, that these secrets were more souvenirs the older generation wanted to forget. Nothing to hide, though, just moments in their life, their past, they preferred to remain clouded in the fog of an aging memory.

I don't believe I will ever know the truth. I do believe, however, that what my younger self imagination had uncovered will remain etched in my mind and fill in the blank spaces in the family tree. They are not there anymore, those who could have given me confirmation or invalidation of my conclusions. I can just rely on discussions with my parents about what they thought they knew about their own parents.

The only thing I can do, now, is give my interpretation, adding another layer of fog, of information-slash-misinformation that always accompany the past, and History. Is it truth, or lies? Recalled reality, or figment of a vivid imagination?

It may or may not have happened, but even the modicum of possibility can come from a wandering memory. I want to keep this alive, even if just to prove that those people rooting the tree of my life have had a life of their own, one that wasn't all daisy and sun, adventures, though, they would have wanted the future generation not to forget...

"For memory, we use our imagination. We take a few strands of real time and carry them with us, then like an oyster we create a pearl around them."

-- John Banville