Memory changes shape as we do.

 My daughter visits from Australia every two or three years. When she is here, she looks forward to looking at photo albums of pictures from when she was younger. This time, the albums were moved, but cannot be found. It's not about the fact that the albums were moved; it’s about what they hold. Moments she can step back into. Faces, places, versions of herself that still feel close when she turns a page. She isn’t living in the past, she’s visiting it, the way you might revisit a favourite park or a familiar street.

And me? I have been noticing something different. When I look at the pictures from my past, they are still there, but the edges of my memories have softened. Where once there were sharp details, now there’s more feeling than fact. That’s not loss as much as it is transformation. Memory changes shape as we do.

Then along comes a song on the radio, Time Passages by Al Stewart, and suddenly it all clicks into place. The song doesn’t just talk about time; it carries it. The slow drift, the pull backward, the realization that even when we don’t try to hold on, something in us still reaches. “I’m not the kind to live in the past…”, and yet, there we are, from time to time, casting a line into those waters.

Music does that in a way nothing else can. A photograph shows you what was. A song lets you feel it again. It brings back not just the image, but the heartbeat of the moment, the room, the laughter, the quiet, even the person you were back then.

Working with caregivers and people living with Dementia adds a deeper layer to this understanding. Time doesn’t stretch the same way for everyone. For some, yesterday fades quickly, and even this morning can slip away. What’s left is now, this moment, this breath, this connection.

And that’s where the real lesson lies.

Time doesn’t wait for us to remember it. Used or unused, cherished or ignored, it keeps moving. But when memory begins to loosen its grip, the present becomes more than just a passing point; it becomes everything.

So, we seize it. We fill it. We make it count.

A song was played together. A laugh shared. A hand held just a little longer.

Because in the end, whether through photos, music, or fleeting moments, what matters most isn’t how clearly we can look back, it’s how fully we choose to live right now.