I Choose Juicy Fruit

  Michael has a horrible memory. This is a good and bad thing. The good is: I'm thankful he can block out bad memories from his past (I know one day they will come flooding in, and I pray for him everyday and feel like I'm prepared) but sometimes it's a battle for the present. The bad: You can give him specific instructions and he will forget two seconds later. He even forgets people. Literally, he can see someone everyday and if he goes a few weeks without seeing them, he forgets their name. He will recognize their face and won't remember how he knows them. Sometimes it's extremely frustrating.
  The stuff he remembers from the past sometimes grips me. He remembers some negative but it's the funny stuff he remembers that pulls at my heart. Like how his birth grandma loved juicy fruit gum and anytime we chew it he thinks of his birth mom because they would chew it together.
  This brings two sides of me. One: Do I never ever buy juicy fruit again to avoid the memory? Two: Do I buy the gum so it jogs his memory and unlocks secrets.
  We buy the gum. Not so it unlocks secrets, but if the only thing he has left from his birth family is the memory of Juicy Fruit, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with him remembering and talking about them. I love hearing the stories he can remember.  Because honestly, I love his birth family. I can't wait until he is old enough to contact them. I want to meet them one day. Not yet, but one day. We pray for them every night-for safety, God to draw them close to Him, and they learn to make good choices.
  We don't press him for memories of his past life. We like to hear about them as he is ready to tell them. Sometimes the negative memories he talks about breaks my heart in two. Like staying in a dirty house with no power for a few days. Or being nervous about playing outside with fear of DHR coming to get him because that's what he was told, and the one time he snuck outside to play, DHR did show up.
  Other times he remembers something small like a smell of someone or passing the local hospital where he came out of her belly. Those memories make me smile. I'm thankful most of the memories of birth family are positive.
  I could choose not to buy Juicy Fruit. I could choose to live in a fantasy world where we are the only people in the world he thinks about. I could choose to act like he doesn't have a past and I could choose for us not to talk about it. I could chose Spearmint or Big Red, but I don't. I choose Juicy Fruit.