Read the given story and classify it as 'imagined', 'recalled', or 'retold'. If a story is imagined, the person who wrote the story is making it up, pretending they experienced it. If a story is recalled, the person who wrote the story really experienced it and is recalling it from memory. If a story is retold, it is a real memory like the 'recalled' stories, but written down much later after previously writing a 'recalled' story about the same events. So, recalled stories and retold stories will be fairly similar, in that they both were real experiences for the writer. Imagined stories have a more linear flow and contain more commonsense knowledge, whereas recalled stories are less connected and contain more specific concrete events. Additionally, higher levels of self reference are found in imagined stories. Between recalled and retold stories, retold stories flow significantly more linearly than recalled stories, and retold stories are significantly higher in scores for cognitive processes and positive tone.

Q: Almost 6 months ago I began a journey that I didn't anticipate when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. There was little warning and no outward signs that definitively pointed to any form of dementia at all. Oh, there was the occasional forgetfulness and a few times the month before her diagnosis where she called me one day to tell me something and then called again three days later to tell me the same thing again. But that only occurred the month prior. My aunt and I compared notes that month and she had experienced the same thing and that was the first clue that anything was wrong. My mother retired to Florida about 20 years ago, my aunt lives in Ohio and I live in Texas and we get to see each other maybe once a year. My mother is 80 so she doesn't do email or text and she doesn't have a smartphone, just the old style flip phone with the big numbers on it. But we all talk to each other almost every week, that is, we used to talk to each other each week until this past March when we saw the first signs. Then April rolled around and that's the month of my birthday and she always calls on that day but this year there was no call. I let it pass and didn't think much of it until my aunt called me towards the end of April when we both realized neither of us had spoken to her for the entire month. We call my brother went over there and found her in bed pretty much incoherent, the condo was a mess and she mumbled something about falling. He took her to the hospital to get her checked out and the doctor said there were no signs of a stroke but he saw bruising on her hip, knee and arm and noted that he thought she probably had taken a bad fall so she stayed in the hospital for a few days under observation. The doctor told them she needed a walker because her knee was not supporting her weight very well and also advised them to have her schedule an appointment with her primary physician because she probably needed a brain scan to rule out other causes of her confusion. It was 3 weeks before she was able to get the brain scan and the confirmed diagnosis at that point was Alzheimer's. She was in a long term care facility within a month and she started losing ground fast. She no longer recognized anyone and she couldn't use the phone at all anymore so no more phone calls. After 2 months she quit eating and they had to put her in hospice which is where she remains today. She gets more attention there and has recovered at least some of the body weight she lost because she simply didn't experience or recognize hunger any longer. We've all learned several hard lessons around this development. Alzheimer's now runs in the family and all 4 of us kids now have an increased chance of being diagnosed with it. I'm 64 and I have to think about the burden that puts on my kids and my wife. 5 months ago? It didn't even register on my list of possibilities but Alzheimer's just changed my life and I don't even have it. Yet.

A: recalled
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Q: My mother passed away at the end of March last year. My sister and I went to the cemetery where my father is buried to make arrangements to have her interred. It was a very sad, difficult week as she'd been on life support and we'd had to make the decision to remove her from the respirator. The doctors said she'd only live a few hours but she lived for several days and seemed really uncomfortable and in pain. It was a very difficult thing to watch and my sister and I were both kind of traumatized when we walked into our meeting with the funeral director. We knew that my mother had asked for a simple graveside service as most of her friends had passed away. We explained this to the funeral director and she really put pressure on us to upsell everything. We keep refusing, wanting to keep it simple, and this woman made us feel so uncomfortable - and cheap, which we aren't - that I was starting to get upset. After more than an hour of this woman pressuring us we finally made the arrangement we'd planned. We then went out to lunch just to recover from the verbal pummeling of this woman. The day finally arrived and after picking up flowers we got to the cemetery early. The service itself was nice. It was a pretty spring day and quite a few family members came. The funeral director was nice to us, which was a change from when we made the arrangements. Despite the awful experience of planning this it turned out well.

A: retold
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Q: I went to Dallas for a convention with my buddies. We paid for an airbnb to get us there. The six of us met up. We played Madden and FIFA all weekend. One of my buddies was a little quiet. He had just been through a divorce and his ex left him little to nothing. We all felt bad for him so I personally invited him to join us. Spending time with him we were able to get his mind off the divorce. Within a few hours he slowly grew back into his old self. We all had a lot of fun together. I honestly hadn't felt this way since we were kids. With all the work and crap of regular life it's hard to stop and just enjoy life with friends. My friend was suicidal, and I was genuinely worried for his well being. So I got an excuse to look after him as well. After the other four said their goodbyes and left I stayed with him a little while. He thanked me and gave me a hug.

A:
imagined
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