Various events in life can cause a flood of early memories. In Proust’s opus In Search of Lost Time, a 4,200 page series of reminiscences, the trigger for the memories are the taste of a cookie. Pictures often bring memories to mind, and that is why so many photos are taken and what made Kodak, in its day, one of the largest companies in the world.
For me, having grown up in philately, many of my memories are triggered by stamps. Every time I look at a 1963 "Food for Peace" stamp, I have a certain set of very powerful memories. These were the stamps that my parents sent with me when I went away to camp for the first time. In the early 1960s, no one phoned from camp or texted—we wrote. And my parents sent me to camp with stationery and a supply of postage stamps—the "Food For Peace" stamp. Every time I see this stamp I remember the sadness of being away from home for the first time, missing my parents, and the joy of being able to communicate with them.
The Monaco 1960s Jules Verne set similarly brings back memories. I was home sick from school, and my father called from work to see how I was and asked me if I wanted any stamps for my collection which I was working on that day. I picked a Monaco set, and he brought it home (not every collector had a stamp dealer father). To this day every time I see this set in a collection I feel a warm connection to my father, who has been gone now nearly thirty years.
Memories can be triggered in many ways. And emotional memories of caring and being cared for are among the deepest and most pleasurable memories. I feel fortunate to be able to access feelings like these in more ways than traditional photos, and I suspect that at its core, philately provides this experience for most of the people who most avidly collect.