There are not many memories that I have retained from a very young age. The only thing that I seem to remember below age 4 is seeing my Pappy. I remember how he seemed to never fully shave his beard, just so he could tickle me with his whiskers. I remember how he would come over to our house multiple times in a week to see me. He would read me stories and make me laugh. He always knew how to make me feel special and loved. He had this puppet that he would play with and make me believe it was talking, which was always my favorite thing. Sadly, my most vivid memory of my Pappy is of his last days in the hospital. I remember the smell and how sick he looked. His face wasn’t nearly as bright as I thought it should be. He still wanted me to be sitting on his bed the whole time I was there to talk to me and still make me feel special. We left and I gave him a kiss. My mom told me that that was his very last kiss. I feel like all of this is a perfect picture in my head. I remember a few flashes of the funeral as well, but not as much, When I think of that day all I remember is talking about heaven and my aunt watching over me.

Now as I sit in my psychology class, I wonder if I really do remember any of this, or if I have constructed my own memories. It feels like there is no way that I could just make those thoughts and images up in my mind. But when learning about how memory really works, it is possible that all of these memories could be from the stories that my mother has told me many times. She is always talking about my pappy and how much he loved me. She tells me these stories all of the time and I tell her each time that I remember every event, but do I? Most of the memories that we have from a young age that we feel we remember are just memories of stories. We have put the imagery in our minds, making it seem like our own memory. This is the misinformation effect. We fill in gaps of our memories to make our recall more coherent. There is no way to tell if I have obtained my own memories from experience or from my mother’s stories. For me, the imagery in my mind is enough, real or not. I am just happy that I do have some type of memory of my Pappy.