Sylvia Wynter's Dream

Xavier Thomas| Blog Prompt 6| November 13th, 2023

Amnesia, one of the most heartbreaking disorders causes one to forget themselves, their culture, their past, and their entire identity as a person. It is the crippling thought of one day not knowing who you are or where you even came from. It is the haunting idea of being unable to identity those who have been around you all your life. A person forgetting remnants of their past leads back to the term “retrogade amnesia”. Symptoms of Retrogade amnesia are as follows: Firstly, a person forgets general knowledge that was learnt before the disorder, they are unable to recognize faces, names, places, dates and other facts about themselves and finally they are unable to even remember the events that occured before the disorder.

amnesia happens in the community more so than anyone realizes. I had a neighbor, a sweet old woman who would brighten anyone’s day with her smile. She was basically the community’s grandmother. She always looked out for everyone, espeically the children. She would bake for us, cook food for us, you name it, she did it. It was a joy having her around, but as a I grew up, it was very apparent that one day she will pass from this world, she was an old woman, nearing her 100s, her passing was inevitable. On the day of May 9th, 2021 she passed away, and the community, as expected, weeped to the news her passing. Today, there are no memories of her to be had in the community at all. Her house was taken apart and is currently being rebuilt. The garden she grew is no longer there. It is as if she had been forgotten despite being loved by the community so much. it makes me think, will I be forgotten the same way when I pass? Will there be any part of me that remains so that I will not be forgetten? It is a scary thing to realize.

It is apparent that the closeness of a community can collapse within seconds when losing a key member. It shows how one can go from being widely loved to being forgotten in a blink of an eye. This not only applies to my community but to the world as well. For the past 4 years, from 2019-2023 society itself has felt as if it slowly healing from the terror that was COVID-19. The years of COVID-19 are finally over, but yet it still feels as if the effects of it are just beginning to wear off. At the start of it all, the world, just as what happened to my community, had become barren. Everyone became isolated from one another, forced to stay indoors and watch as the world faced a global pandemic. The more people were forced to stay indoors, the more paranoid everyone became. The isolation left people with depression, as they did not feel like they belonged anywhere. Society as a whole had forgotten what it was like to connect with others outside of a digital screen.

This is important because of the aftermath of it all, the world went back to normal. We, as a collective speices must never forget the death and despair that came with the pandemic. historical events like this are necessary for humanity to learn from, so that mistakes may never be repeated. the world is not just for those in the present but for the ones that will inhabit it in the future. Hence, why is it imperative that future generations learn about the history of the world as it is always evolving.

As we progress as human beings, it is important to never get our history or where we came from. As a Jamaican, a man of the Caribbean, it is important for me to remember the harsh reality of the past. SLavery and colonization is one of the most important events in the history of the world. It exposed the cruelties of humanity and how power and money can be seen as advents of evil. We must never forget the heroes that fought to give us the freedom we have today. Our national heroes, our coat of arms, our culture as we know it must be preserved for future generations to come. the world may forget about us, but as a country, as a nation, we must never forget ourselves. The world may not remember figures important to us such as Louise Bennett Coverly or Bob Marley, but as long we, as people of the Caribbean, the people of Jamaica pass on their teachings and their art, they will forever be immortalized in the eye of the people.

One must also come to term that the past may lost. But while lost, does not mean it is necessarily forgotten. Legacy can be easily passed down to future generations to preserve family culture and pracitces. While at first it may take some time for the newer generations to adapt to this, in time, by doing so, they will not only discover their identity but reinforce the importance of cultural preservation.

Amnesia can happen to anyone in the family, it happened to my grandmother, my mother told me stories of how she weeped when her own mother could not recognize her. But today, my mother lives through the memories of my grandmother. She upholds the same beliefs and practices she does. She goes to church, she always keeps the house clean as her mother emphasized cleanliness, she even cooks food the traditional way her mother did. My grandmother may have died, but she was surely not forgotten.I never met my grandmother but the stories of her made it seem as if I did. My mother adored her mother, and treats her legacy and teaching with the upmost respect. Now it is up to myself to do the same, and hopefully, I am able to keep my mother’s beliefs and practices alive, to pass it down to my children, creating a heritage that will go on forever.