I remembered to buy laundry detergent today. This isn’t a huge feat, considering that I procure all of the 1,833 household products my six consumers demand. Paige yells, while flying out the door, that she needs ponytail holders and they magically appear. John starts snoring at night and I slip a new package of Claritin in the cabinet. Somehow, generally without a list, I remember to purchase all items that ensure harmony in the house. Never running out of laundry soap, peanut butter or cat food is my personal measure of mental capability. Dementia does not seem to be setting in, yet.

Remembering is one of my gifts. With clarity I can recall the “Over the Brink” game I received the Christmas I was in fourth grade, the turquoise shirt with the eyelet collar I wore to the seventh grade dance, and the chicken recipe I made for John the first month we were dating. The memory part of my brain works on life situations more readily than calculus equations and I wonder why.

I enjoy remembering the past. The moments of joy are available instantaneously, like television shows saved on our new digital recorder. Push when and where and I relive the births of four precious children. Adjust my attitude and I travel to Austria and eat dinner in front of Mozart’s house. Before I dose off for the night I replay some of these flashes with God and ask Him to keep them coming.

But I also recall the dreadful. Like episodes of CSI, I search through the rubble of every devastating situation looking for ways that past scenarios could have been changed. Did the doctor have to tell us Merritt would have a brief life? Was it necessary for me to bark at the boys when they used their sleds in the mud? If I had cut the steering wheel just 4 seconds earlier could I have avoided scraping the car against the garage?

We can go back, but we can’t. This year I’ll honor all those miseries and mistakes if I remember them, but I’ll leave them where they belong, knowing I can’t alter the past. I’ll focus on the joyous recollections and replay them when I pull out a photo album or yearbook. And I will celebrate my marvelous memory today when I select Q-tips when faced with the 256,943 other products at Wal-Mart.