Who are you if you can't remember?

Michaela's 17-year-old boyfriend got a concussion while snowboarding on Monday. Monday night Russell was still having trouble with short-term memory. Michaela talked to him on the phone late, keeping him up 'cause he wasn't supposed to go to sleep yet. He couldn't remember past a minute. What if he never gets better? Would it still be Russell? I guess it would be, but it would be a Russell caught in a perpetual now, the eternal shining moment, nothing behind and maybe nothing ahead either. Never getting old, always 17. All there is is now. It's like achieving immortality. Who are we if we have no future to plan for, no past to warm us on bleak days? We could hardly even carry on a conversation. We'd be like the animals. Maybe it's our memories and our planning, our dreams and our regrets, that make us human.