A Fall with a Canoe Happened Twice

No One Remembers It That Way challenge - The Prompt: Write about a memory that you and someone else remember completely differently.

You remember exactly what happened. Unfortunately, so does someone else, and their version is nothing like yours.

For this challenge, revisit a memory you share with another person and explore the places where your stories don't match. Maybe you disagree about who said what, how something started, whether it was hilarious or humiliating, or even whether it happened the way you remember at all.

The differences can be tiny, or they can change the entire story. Dig into both versions and what might be hiding in the space between them. Memory is a funny thing, and sometimes the disagreement tells you more than getting the facts straight ever could.

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We were at a meeting with friends when my sister-friend gives me a sobriety medallion. Then she starts in with accolades, and she is really piling it on and she finishes with one thing. She says, there is one exception, and she proceeds to say, "We were in the boundary waters, and this happened."

"As we were getting out of the canoe, Denise got out first. I was the one with the most experience, so I held the canoe firm. Then as I was getting out one leg in the canoe and the other in the water, the canoe moved and I'm doing the splits. I need help! And Denise says, I can't help you!"

"Then that same trip, we were riding the canoe down a small rippling stream, and as we get out and I have the canoe on my back, and start to slip, she again says I can't help you."

Well, all the nice things just disappear in these last remarks. So, I say, Mary that isn't exactly true. We have had this discussion before and what I said both times was that I would like to help, but I can't. And it is because I freeze in situations like that.

Then I said and those experiences didn't happen on the same trip. And you were sharing how when you were on a blind persons trip, how one of the blind women rolled down the hill and you were laughing as you told that story. I told you your fall from the canoe was Karma!

The time we were floating down a small rapid and went to get off of it, I offered to help pull the canoe in, and she said, she would do it. She lifted it on her back and as she stepped up on the rock she slipped and the canoe landed back in the water along with her.

Again, I said that I would like to help but I can't. I then held the canoe in place while she pulled the canoe out of the water. That is what I offered to do to begin with. Thankfully she wasn't hurt either time.

Anyway, it was a sister thing! We have been sisters for 45 years. She is 67, and I am 72. We helped raise each other's children and support each other through some tough times and many great times.

The bottom line is I think she knows what was really said, but it is more fun to tease me about it! As I do go on the defense. I'm not sure why but that wasn't the first time I wanted to help but couldn't.

A friend was choking on a bite of steak. I took first aid prior to this experience and know the Heimlich but could not do it.

Instead, I ran into the kitchen as we were alone in a restaurant to get the cook or waitress to come out and help my friend. The cook came out and as she did the heimlich, I saw the piece of steak fly from her mouth.

It is not something I am proud to talk about as it worries me that I wouldn't be able to save someone's life if I ever needed to. And that is probably why it affects me so, when this topic comes up.

On a trip with Mary and Rose hiking the magnetic trail, Rose fell. Thankfully a nurse with two other hikers were there shortly to help Rose, and to help her off the trail, where we then took her to be checked out. I didn't have to do anything but be there with her.

As my friend Rose was losing her hearing at one point, she accused me of calling her a pig. I didn't remember the conversation she was referring to but it sounded like she remembered the exact conversation. I would never call her a pig and I told her so.

Then I suggested she may be losing her hearing, as an explanation of why she heard what she heard. There were hard feelings and again our sisterhood had gone back to when I first worked with her, at age 18, which makes it over 50 years.

She never apologized for confronting me about that, but she did let me know as soon as she got hearing aids. That was the closest I will get to an apology. And I think she still isn't sure that I didn't call her a pig. Something I would never do, and I have never called anyone a pig in my life.

I was however called a hog, by my mother-in-law, who thought I was winning at cards too much. When my father-in-law was living, she told me that I better not let them win. I admit, I wasn't playing the best game I could, as my father-in-law appeared so happy when his team won.

Because I don't care if I win in cards or not, I started to play the same way with my mother-in-law and I think she knew that! I just didn't want to be called a hog again! 😉😂🤣