Gift: A Son's Story (extract) - 'Memories' (i)

Another excerpt from my memoir of my time as mum's full-time carer.

Something drastic happens...

          Another thing mum had taken up in her retirement was computing.  At the time, in the early 2000s, there was a place in the town where people could go to learn the basics of computers.  Mum enrolled herself on a course and was soon learning about Windows, Word and web surfing.  When she worked for Tote Investors in London, she'd learned to touch type, so she soon picked up some keyboard proficiency.  She bought herself a laptop from Woolworths - the one she was still using.  She liked to go on the internet and search for articles and photographs of things she remembered from her past.  The war years.  Canada.  Devon.  London.  I helped her to set up an email address and a Facebook page.  She would often post updates on there - talking about what she was doing, or simply wishing her friends a nice day.  She learned about Amazon, and how to do online shopping.  She used YouTube to look at music videos and films.  I'd downloaded Google Earth, which fascinated her - seeing all those countries that she'd always wanted to visit, but never had.  She also decided, one day - once she'd learned a bit more about using Word - to start typing down her memories from childhood.

            "I've often thought about doing it," she'd said.  "But I never really know where to start."

            "Just start at the beginning, mum," I'd said.  "Don't worry about trying to put it all in order.  You can do that afterwards.  Just type down the memories as they come to you."

            So, for a little while, that's what she did.  She'd covered her early childhood and up to the evacuation years - just writing these little vignettes.  But she was never happy with it.

            "I never know exactly what to say.  I want to try to make it interesting."

            "Mum... it's interesting, anyway.  It's not a novel.  You don't need to give it a plot or anything.  Whatever it is, it's going to be priceless.  Those memories are unique."

            She did it on and off over the course of about a year.  But then, like the art, she stopped.  She always kept the file, though, on her Desktop.  She'd also bought herself a memory stick to keep back-ups.  I'd shown her how to use it, and she'd said she would use it.  But she tended to forget things.  Quite often, over the years, she'd ring me at home during the evening to say she'd been writing, or looking at the internet, and something odd had happened.

            "I was typing away and I pressed the return key - and everything just disappeared."

            "How do you mean, disappeared?"

            "Just that.  It vanished."

            I'd talk her through various things, but she didn't always understand.  Sometimes, I'd had to go around to find out what the problem was.  It was usually a simple thing.  She might have inadvertently clicked the 'Minimise' icon - so the document was there on the taskbar, waiting to be clicked again.  Or she might have opened a new internet tab by accident and didn't know how to toggle back to where she'd been.  All in all, though, she did remarkably well with it.  Lots of people were impressed that she had a Facebook page and an email address.  She liked to try to keep up with things like that.

            After I'd moved in as carer, I got the laptop down now and then (it hadn't been used for ages at that point) and showed her the games.  Freecell and Solitaire.  I showed her Mah Jong Titans, too - telling her it was like the old 'Pairs' card game, which she always loved as a child.  And of course, there were the films we'd watched.  And the music videos of her favourites: The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, George Michael, Take That.

            One evening, she said she'd like to watch some music videos.  I rigged the laptop to the TV as usual and thought I'd give her a special treat.  I knew of a live recording of the young Polish pianist, Anna Fedorova, playing mum's all-time favourite piano concerto: Rachmaninov's No. 2.  I found it, clicked 'play', and we sat back to listen and watch.  The video wouldn't play properly, though.  There seemed to be a streaming issue.  I tried for ages - stopping the video, refreshing the page - but with no luck.  Finally, after several attempts, I gave up.  Mum said not to worry, because she felt like an early night. 

            The next morning, I tried the laptop again.  This time, though, it wouldn't boot into Windows.  I restarted several times, but nothing.  Finally, when I went shopping, I took it with me to the computer shop to ask if they could take a look.

            "It sounds like it could be the hard drive," the chap told me.

            He said he'd check it and give me a call.  My main worry was saving the data.  Mum's 'Memories' file was still on there.  I asked that, if nothing else was possible, could they at least retrieve that.

            The following day, Saturday, I went back to the shop.  I could tell straight away, by the look on the chap's face, that things weren't good.

            "Basically, the hard drive is dead.  It's given up completely.  We can't even access it to get the data off.  If you haven't got a back-up of any of it, it's gone." 

            At those words, the blood seemed to drain from my head.  I grabbed the counter to steady myself.

            "Are you alright?" he said.

            I shook my head.

            "There's a file on there.  Just a single Word file.  As far as I know, it's the only copy."

            He groaned.  "Well... all I can say is, and it's no consolation.... but I've seen grown men cry at that news."

            I was beyond crying.  That precious file - those precious memories.  They couldn't just be gone.

            "Surely a hard drive shouldn't pack up just like that," I said, as if it was going to change anything.

            "But they do," he said.  "They're very delicate pieces of equipment.  Sometimes, even a knock can do it."

            A knock?  Then I started going back over things.  Had I knocked it accidentally when I got it down from the wardrobe that evening?  Had I, in frustration, closed the lid down harder than I would normally have done?  Had I caused it?  Had I lost those memories?  I was suddenly struck by the cruel irony of it.  Mum's digital 'memories' - lost, at the same time as her own physical memory was starting to go.

            "There is one thing you can try," the chap said, at last.  "There's a firm you can send it to.  They can often retrieve things under laboratory conditions.  But it doesn't always work, and it's a very specialised job.  So it costs a fortune."

            "How much?"

            "It could easily be over a grand."

            That was out of the question.  I didn't have the money.  Mum had some savings that would cover it, but there was no way on earth that I was going to tell her what had happened, or ask her to pay for it.

            "What I can do," he went on, "is put a new hard drive in for you and reload her settings.  Then you can keep the old hard drive until such times as you can afford to try that."

            There was nothing else for it.  I told him to go ahead.  I'd find her old Desktop photo from her Facebook page, download the other stuff she had.  I just had to hope she didn't want to look at that 'Memories' file again.

(continued)  https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/gift-sons-story-extract-memories-ii