You never know, Ebbie, what memories will turn into. When my sister died in 1991 some one sent a planter to the house filled with narcissus and hyacinth, two very fragrant blooms that are overpowering indoors, even when not associated with grief.    For years after that the fragrance of these two lovely flowers filled me with dread and grief, even in the garden. The last couple of years, however, I find they evoke welcomed remembrances, tinged with gentle sadness, of my beloved sister.

There is lots of interesting and informative research about memory available. Google "Oliver Sacks short term memory." A bunch of stuff comes up that is very accessible to the lay reader, too much to link to selectively, except, since this is a music site, I will link to Music Bridges the Abyss .

This case, Clive Wearing, is about total amnesia for his past, combined with absolute loss of short term memory. Except the well developed learning and capacity for music remains. Nothing else. Just the music, in the moment, from moment to moment.   When the moment is gone, the memory and the music is gone, and there is also an absence of long term memory.