If you're over 70 and can still remember exactly where you were when Kennedy was shot — not just the fact but the weather, the room, the feeling in your chest — your memory is operating at a level most people your age have quietly lost

November 22, 1963. I was seventeen, sitting in Mr. Henderson's chemistry class, third row from the back, when Sister Catherine burst through the door. Her face was white as chalk dust.

"President Kennedy has been shot," she said, and then she started crying right there in front of us. The radiator in the corner was clanking its usual rhythm, but suddenly that was the only sound in the room.

Outside, fat snowflakes had just started falling, the first of the season, and I remember thinking how wrong it was that something so beautiful could happen on the same day the world cracked open.

If you can still recall moments like this with that kind of crystalline clarity, down to the sensory details that wrapped around the shock, you're holding onto something precious that many of our peers have let slip away.

Not because they're careless, but because maintaining this level of memory takes something most people don't realize: active, deliberate engagement with the practice of remembering.

The landscape of memory after seventy

Here's what nobody tells you about memory as we age: forgetting isn't always about brain cells dying or synapses misfiring. Sometimes it's about surrender.

I've watched friends my age throw up their hands at the first sign of forgetfulness, accepting it as an inevitable toll of aging. "Senior moments," they laugh, but there's fear underneath that laughter.

The truth is more nuanced and, frankly, more hopeful. Those of us who can still summon up the texture of pivotal moments from decades past aren't necessarily blessed with better genetics or healthier brains. We might simply be the ones who refused to stop exercising our memory like it matters.

Think about it this way: how often do you actually sit with a memory anymore? Not just acknowledge it happened, but really inhabit it again? When I think about that day Kennedy died, I don't just remember the fact of it. I close my eyes and I'm back in that classroom.

I can smell the floor wax they used at St. Mary's, feel the scratchy wool of my uniform skirt, hear Tommy behind me dropping his pencil when Sister Catherine spoke. This isn't nostalgia; it's practice.

Why some memories burn brighter than others

Traumatic or highly emotional events do something unique to our brains. They activate multiple systems at once, creating what researchers call "flashbulb memories." But here's what's fascinating: while that initial encoding might be stronger for dramatic events, keeping those memories vivid requires something from us.

I've kept a practice that might sound strange to some. Every few months, I deliberately walk through significant memories from my past.

Not just the Kennedy assassination, but my wedding day, the morning each of my children was born, the afternoon I got the call about my husband's heart attack. I don't just remember that these things happened; I reconstruct them piece by piece.

The weather matters. The light in the room matters. What song was playing on the radio, what I was wearing, who called afterward. These aren't trivial details. They're the anchors that keep memories from floating away into the vague territory of "sometime in the past."

The daily practices that preserve memory

You want to know the real secret? It's not crossword puzzles, though those don't hurt. It's storytelling. Those of us with sharp memories tend to be the ones who've been telling our stories all along. Not the same rehearsed anecdotes at every family gathering, but really mining our experiences for meaning and detail.

During my teaching years, I noticed something. The students who could recall information best weren't necessarily the smartest ones. They were the ones who connected new information to something they already knew, who made it personal somehow. The same principle applies to our own memories.

Every evening before bed, I write in my gratitude journal. Started this after my husband passed, when grief threatened to erase everything except the pain. But here's the key: I don't just list what I'm grateful for. I describe it.

"Grateful for coffee with Joan" becomes "Grateful for that moment when Joan snorted coffee through her nose laughing about her grandson's attempt to explain cryptocurrency." The specificity matters. It trains your brain to notice and hold onto details.

What we risk when we let memories fade

There's something else at stake here beyond just personal recollection. We're the last generation that remembers certain watershed moments in living color. When we let those memories become fuzzy, we lose something collectively precious.

Do you remember where you were when Martin Luther King Jr. was shot? When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon? When the Berlin Wall came down? These aren't just historical facts; they're human experiences that shaped who we became.

The teenager who watched Kennedy's funeral on a black and white TV became the adult who questioned authority during Watergate, who learned that governments could lie, that heroes could fall, that the world could change in an instant.

Strengthening memory is an act of resistance

At seventy-plus, actively maintaining our memories becomes almost rebellious. Society expects us to fade, to become unreliable narrators of our own lives. When we show up with sharp recall, when we can place ourselves precisely in history, we're pushing back against every stereotype about aging.

But it takes work. Real work. Not just brain training apps or supplements, but the emotional labor of staying engaged with our own histories. It means being willing to feel things again, even the difficult things.

That November day in 1963, I also remember the fear. The way my mother clutched her rosary that entire weekend. How my father, usually so steady, sat silent in front of the television for hours.

Final thoughts

If you can still tell someone exactly where you were when Kennedy was shot, treasure that ability. More importantly, exercise it. Pull out other memories and examine them like photographs you've just discovered in an old shoebox.

What was the quality of light that day? Who was standing next to you? What did the air smell like?

These aren't just memories; they're proof that we've lived fully, that we've paid attention, that the decades haven't dimmed our ability to bear witness.

In a world that often dismisses the memories of older adults, our clear recollections become acts of defiance. Keep remembering. Keep telling. The details matter more than you know.