Even Heaven needs a Two factor Authentication Security code these days!

I premise that the older we get, the more memory feels less like a filing cabinet and more like a group tech project where nobody takes notes.

Kathleen Remembers It Differently...she is quite at home with the tech world.

I remember when life was simple. Kath is fine with the way of things.

Once upon a time...If you needed to deposit a check, you walked into a bank. If you forgot a password, it wasn't a crisis because there weren't forty-eleven of them. Now I can't buy a light bulb, pay a bill, or look at my own medical records without proving to three different companies via a network of pixels, codes and God knows what, that I'm not an international criminal.

As I joked the other day, "Even Jesus needs a two-factor authentication security code these days."

Kathleen rolled her eyes.

"You always exaggerate."

Maybe I do.

But then Kathleen and I started arguing about a memory from years ago, and suddenly the joke didn't seem so ridiculous. Because if there's one thing harder to verify than an online account, it's the past.

I remember a summer afternoon when we got caught in a thunderstorm. We'd been walking home from the grocery store. The sky turned black without warning. Rain came down all awry, wind sending water this way and that. We ran to a bus shelter, laughing so hard we could barely breathe.

At least that's how I remember it.

Kathleen insists there was no laughter.

According to her, I was irritated the entire time because the paper grocery bags were falling apart. She says I spent ten minutes complaining about the weather and another ten complaining about the store's terrible bags.

"You weren't laughing," she says. "You were grumpy."

"No," I tell her. "You were grumpy."

Kathleen shakes her head. "You always remember yourself as the fun version."

The more we talk, the stranger it becomes.

I remember the shelter painted bright blue.

She remembers it green. Maybe one of us was color-blind, I mused.

I remember us sharing an umbrella that barely worked, the wind kept flinging the canopy into the air, leaving us just as exposed.

She says there wasn't any umbrella at all.

I remember sunshine breaking through the clouds when it ended.

She remembers that it rained all evening.

One of us must be wrong. Or maybe both of us are.

What fascinates me isn't figuring out who's correct. It's asking why our memories drifted so far apart.

Maybe my mind kept the parts that turned an inconvenience into an adventure.

Maybe hers held onto the details because details matter.

Maybe memory isn't a recording device. Maybe it's a storyteller. Every year it retells the tale, sanding off some edges, sharpening others, quietly editing the script.

The funny thing is that our disagreement reveals more truth than the facts ever could.

From my version, you learn that I want life to be remembered as joyful, even when it wasn't.

From Kathleen's version, you learn that she trusts reality more than nostalgia.

The argument itself becomes the memory.

We're no longer discussing a storm from years ago. We're discussing who we are now.

And perhaps that's what happens with most memories. We think we're looking backward, trying to recover the past. In reality, we're holding up a mirror to the present.

The thunderstorm isn't on trial.

We are.

So Kathleen and I will probably never agree about what happened on that rainy afternoon. Just as we'll never agree on which route we took, who said what, or whether the bus shelter was blue or green.

What we do agree on is this...We were there together. The rest is left completely up to interpretation.

And honestly, in an age where every website sends a verification code to another device that requires a verification code of its own, maybe that's enough.

After all, getting the facts straight is overrated. Remembering together, even differently, is the real miracle. We may not remember that particular day the same, Kath and I...but I tell her...

Me.

"Life has become a Divine Comedy with a Cybersecurity twist - A Mystical Bureaucracy of Two factor Authentication Security code these days. Getting through to humanity keeps getting more and more difficult. It's become so confusing, that even 'Jesus needs a Two factor Authentication Security code these days'!

People are no longer believing in Salvation by doing good deeds or being kind one to another"!

Kathleen...

"Well it depends on how you look at it. It's the Devil in the details. Perhaps it's because you are...you know...getting a little long in the tooth and everything just seems more difficult". She replied, laughing.

Me...

It's not funny, Kath. Bad guys (and the Devil) have preyed upon the world to the stage that life and everything needs to be twice and thrice verified. So now, in order for a higher power to get in touch with us...THEY HAVE TO BE TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATED BY EARTH'S SECURITY CODE.

Every time that the Father had the Techy Angels reset the codes...the Earth Techy guys would figure it out and also reset it to their advantage...blocking Goodness from reaching below the Heavenly layers of the Firmament.

I mean...It's gotten so bad that good and bad are having a battle for our souls...yes, I know, that has always been happening...both duking it out. I am not sure which of them is winning the war for the human soul...The personal and moral side of the human soul is locked so tightly behind titanium and diamond two factor authenticated prison bars, that Jehu can barely access it".

Kathleen...

"Diamonds, titanium, gold bars...sounds like a problem for the wealthy when it comes to hardness and resistance. It's really the less fortunate and impecunious like us who can't withstand the stress loads of life".

Me...'Ok. Now Imagine this stress load double fortified...doubly authenticated ...needing a plethora of pins and authorization codes.

The material side of humanity is winning the competition - it's become so precious that hackers and the devil are vying for the rights to enter the human psyche using the backdoor entrance to the materialistic soul".

Kathleen..."Geez. What has gotten into you. I know how difficult it is for you to deal with this online stuff. But is it all that bad"?

Me... "Getting a bit long in the tooth has its disadvantages... I yearn for the old days of simplicity. We are the same age, but you seem to be so at home with all of this techy stuff. Our brains are wired differently. I so envy you the ease with which you navigate the world wide web of living".

Kathleen..."I know. But don't worry...I will always be here to do all of the techy stuff for you".

So Kathleen and I will probably never agree about what happened on that rainy afternoon. Just as we'll never agree on which route we took, who said what, or whether the bus shelter was blue or green.

What we do agree on is this...

We were there together.

The rest, as I said before... is in the interpretation.

Sometimes I think that's what I miss most about those earlier days. Not the bank tellers who knew your name, or the paper passbooks, or the fact that nobody needed six passwords and a verification code just to check an account balance.

I miss the certainty of shared moments.

Back then, experiences seemed to belong to everyone who was there. Nobody took pictures of every minute. Nobody documented every detail. Memories lived quietly in conversation, retold over kitchen tables and long car rides. They changed a little with each telling, but somehow that made them richer, not weaker.

These days, we can prove almost everything. Photographs, timestamps, videos, receipts, location history. Yet somehow the past feels less certain than ever.

Kathleen and I may never settle our argument about that storm. The facts are probably gone for good, carried off like rainwater seeping into dry soil.

But every now and then we'll revisit it. She'll insist I was grumbling. I'll insist we were laughing. We'll both be absolutely sure we're right.

And for a moment, we're back there again.

The groceries in our hands. The summer air just before the rain. A younger version of each of us standing beneath a bus shelter whose color neither of us can prove.

Memory may be unreliable, but it has a kindness to it. It lets us visit places that no longer exist, spend time with people we once were, and hold on to ordinary afternoons long after they've disappeared from the world.

The older I get, the less interested I am in winning the argument.

I'm just grateful that Kathleen and I remember that day at all.

Because one day, when the passwords and security codes and digital accounts have all been forgotten, what will remain are these imperfect little stories. Two people, one moment, two different versions.

And somewhere between them, a life well lived.

Kathleen and I