Amnesia is a common trope in many a stories, and usually used a magical forget-me stick that negates character development and causes the plot to go in cliched dramatic ways.

For my stories, I have really only used retrograde amnesia once and that's in Imposter, and made sure to model it after the real thing as close as possible. (remembering that memory loss is still case-to-case basis and all that.)

Recently, I had an uncle who passed who had a severe Traumatic Brain Injury years ago and suffered originally both from a combination of retrograde (to a certain point) and anterograde amnesia.

The anterograde amnesia became permanent, but through cognitive therapy, and a lot of puzzle-making, he was able to remember up to 3 months of memory for the rest of his life.

After having him survive be a miracle in itself, his courage and determination to push forward as well as the fact of not letting a wheelchair stop him from living life inspired me growing up.

As a result, I even did a research presentation on TBI during a seminar, and used his case as an example to educate others in my university.

Anyways, I always have tried to respect and explain medical conditions similar to this to others, and disdain of the overly fictionalized 'magical' amnesia portrayed in fiction.

Lately, I've had several reasons to think about the importance of memory and how it affects our daily function.

One: I've been watching a way too many Taiwanese/ C-dramas & movies and a few Korean dramas & movies that use this amnesia trope for dramatic effect.

Two: I've been suffering from memory fog as well as have an aunt who just had another aneurysm and kept calling my mom to ask if certain events really did happen.

This led me to having the idea for a story where I had a patient with anterograde amnesia featured as the main protagonist and make it as as tribute to my late uncle-in-law (my mom's godfather). The basic premise is that a young Korean man falls in love with the main protagonist, but this is not 'sick-lit'! I am not attempting to romanticize what she, my uncle or others go through.

As someone who has gone through, and is going through serious health issues myself, this story is a way of me expressing those feelings as well as exploring the grief over the multiple deaths in my friends/family I have had recently, including my late uncle/my mom's godfather. However, this is a not a memoir.

Think of it as instead of me writing poetry (which I still do as that's part of I started doing after a family's friend suicide), I'm letting the reader take a good look at the character's lives and have a glimpse at what their spiritual journal/daily diary might look like.

Thanks to everyone who gives this a try and remember this as this is my first time writing strictly in the realistic fiction and romance genre so go gentle on me in the comments, lol.

Enjoy!