In his book, Venture to the Interior, Van der Post tells us how, while exploring the Nyika plateau in eastern Africa, he wakes one morning feeling severely depressed but without knowing why. Later that day, he realizes that it is the anniversary of a time seven years before, when, as prisoners of war of the Japanese, he and his fellow officers were called to witness two particularly frightening and violent executions. (p. 219)

Reading The Return of the King to Aspen yesterday, I read how Frodo, upon leaving Rivendell, crosses the Ford of Bruinen and is suddenly silent. He seems not to notice his companions or anything around him. Questioned by Gandalf, he answers, “it is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.” It had been exactly a year before when the dark and fell lord of the Ring Wraiths had wounded him upon Weathertop. (p. 268)
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A client of mine became very ill and had to be hospitalized. Later, talking with me, she said that exactly a year before she had been in a serious bus accident in Mexico and had almost died.

My body regularly reminds me of several of my anniversaries. There is March 7th, the anniversary of when I died as a young boy. There is Veteran’s Day, November 11th, when I drove my car off a cliff in the High Sierras. There are the anniversaries of my parents’ deaths.

Sometimes these anniversaries remain hidden from us. As Van der Post says, they don’t always tumble instantly “out in the full light of day.” Sometimes they remain hidden from our conscious minds. However, our bodies always remember.

Anniversaries will not be denied. As Van der Post says, “there is that in our blood which does not forget so easily; our hearts and our deepest minds have a will and a way of their own, and there are anniversaries that they insist upon keeping, no matter what our conscious preoccupations. (p. 219)