MORE MUSINGS ON MEMORIES...

In seeming contradiction to the previous post on remembering things, here's a contrary example of someone forgetting stuff that should have been embedded in their memory banks.  (And maybe they were, somewhere in the deepest recesses of their mind, and they'd only forgotten how to access those particular memories.)  Incidentally (and ironically), I think I may have related some of this before, but I can't quite recall.

Anyway, first though, I have to set the scene.  The family who used to live in my house, with whom we swapped in 1972, had lived here for about 17 or 18 years before us.  16 years after we'd swapped houses, I arranged to visit the mother (who now lived in the house alone) to take some photos from my former bedroom window, as building work was shortly due to commence in the playing field across the road and I wanted to capture the view (as I'd known it) before it changed forever.

I took along some photos of the view from the back bedroom window of what had once been her house and was now mine.  Remember that she'd lived here for 17 or 18 years, but when she saw the photos, she enquired where they'd been taken as she didn't recognise the scene she'd once been familiar with for very nearly 20 years.  "That's the flats on the other side of the garden at the back of the house" I replied, but she still didn't recognise them.

Also, in the kitchen above the sink used to be a small cupboard with sliding doors, upon the top of which I used to keep my pet white mouse in its cage.  When I walked into the kitchen with her, I observed aloud that the cupboard was now gone, and was surprised when she said in response that there'd never been a cupboard there.  When I said I used to keep my pet mouse above it, she repeated her assertion (not in an impatient way) because she obviously had no recollection of it.

I found this puzzling, because I couldn't understand how someone could live in their old house for 17-odd years and forget the view from the window, and also forget that there used to be a cupboard on the wall above the kitchen sink in their new house.  The only possible explanation I can think of is that some people aren't very observant, and because they're unaware of certain things at the time, they can't recall them later as they were never assimilated into their consciousness.  In short, they can't remember what they never noticed to begin with.  (I don't think she was suffering from any kind of dementia, but I suppose that's another possible explanation.)

So, 'fellow Mellows', have you any experience of someone you know forgetting something that you'd have thought it was impossible for them to forget?  If so, reveal all in the comments section.