Lost Language

“Words fail me.” “I’m speechless.” “She’s at a loss for words.” Such expressions are considered a normal gap in one’s abilities to find suitable language in certain stressful or overwhelmingly emotional times. At the beginning of life, there is a rapid gathering of verbal elements – a snowball gaining speed and building to a phenomenally grand toolbox of linguistic pieces. Letters and punctuation accumulate and our verbal thoughts and words are like a tide constantly ebbing and flowing. With loss of memory, a gradual disintegration of language happens. Words stick together, but are isolated from others. Some words are lost altogether creating a language that makes accommodations for the parts that are missing. As witnesses to memory loss, we make excuses and sense of what’s left. “He had a beautiful woolen jacket” becomes “he had one.” We struggle to piece together the intended meaning and make do with what’s left until words become fragments and fragments turn to silence.