Struggling with Name Recall: 'You're a Part of Me'

I recently reconnected with some cousins who, years and years ago, left small town Grand Junction, Tennessee for Georgia before bouncing around a couple of other states.

I say “reconnected.” I never knew them, but the internet and DNA are powerful things. They are powerful enough to bring people together who never knew they were connected at all. That long-lost cousin who first contacted me, Cindy, sent me a song her nephew, Jordan Lucas, had written about her mother - their matriarch. The song, “Bury Me in Tennessee” by My Southern Soul, voiced her last wishes and longing for home on this plane and hereafter.

A song that resonated with my own experience

The song quickly became a favorite and a constant in my YouTube playlist rotation. The words seemed familiar from the first time I listened, and they resonated with me and my experience with my own immediate family. It eerily felt like a song I’d always known. Jordan beautifully penned and sang a story that anyone who has been affected by Alzheimer’s disease or another type of dementia will find common threads in. One line in particular still hits my heart each time I listen.

“Now, there may . . . Come a day . . . I know you’re mine, but can’t recall your name . . .”

You're a part of me

When I spoke to Cindy about the song, she agreed with my sentiments about that line. She said, "Mama died with dementia, diagnosed Alzheimer’s. In those last two to three years, she could no longer remember names. She would pat her heart and say, 'You’re a part of me.'"

Eventually, she could no longer use pronouns correctly. She would see one of her grandchildren or great-grandchildren, pat her heart, and say, 'That’s a part of me.'" Much more beautiful than name recall is knowing someone is a part of your heart.

Remembering Verniece Welch Roberson

Verniece Welch Roberson, a relative I never had the pleasure of knowing, didn’t retain all the word power she’d ever known, but she didn’t lose what she knew in the depths of “her southern soul.”

She retained all of the most important things that make up a person. She knew where she came from, and she knew the sum of her parts. She knew who she was deep down, and she knew who belonged to her. Her heart and head remained connected, and she knew who her heart beat for in her later days.

Her love and affection for others did not go unmatched, and it is obvious in the words Jordan wrote and the way Cindy speaks of her. She knew who made up the parts of her, and they still know they carry a part of her with them. She knew where she had been, and where she was going. I know she’s there now, resting in peace.