Rambling about time and memory.
What is life? Time…..Memory. That’s pretty much it.
I’ve thought about it so much. We live in the moment and then the moment is gone. All that’s left if we are lucky, is a pleasant memory. If we are lucky…. If it’s an unpleasant memory, it’s still part of our time, part of our life. We have to have some of both. That’s just the way things work.
If I make it exactly 89 more days, I will be 72 years old. When I was a kid, I used to worry about dying young. Now, I don’t have to worry about that anymore. My youngest granddaughter is fascinated by my oldness and asks me all the time: “Papa, are you old”? Yes, I am I tell her, yes, I am.
I only hope that in these 72 years that some of the memories I will be leaving behind will be good ones. I know they all can’t be, because I have definitely made some mistakes in my life, but I hope at least I’m past 50%! I also hope I have some more of that “time” in order to build some more of those “memories” to leave behind. Who knows? In this day and age…who knows. If my life follows the pattern of my parents, then maybe I can eke out ten or eleven more years.
I have a lot of memories in my hard drive. I can remember my grandmother’s soft touch when I was a little kid, brushing back my hair and telling me a story. I remember my Daddy’s voice so well, whether he was encouraging me or getting on my case for doing something I shouldn’t be doing. I dream of my dad pretty often, but for some reason he never talks in my dreams. I don’t know why. Maybe, it’s because he’s still mad at me for not being there at the end. Maybe it’s just the way my dreams are fabricated.
I remember my mom’s emotional eyes looking at me, always conveying an apology for not always being there. I remember my first daughter behind a glassed-in window where I would never get to touch her. I remember the moment I first saw each of my other three children. It’s imprinted on my brain. I have tons of wonderful memories with my grandchildren. Because of the way my life has gone, I have been able to spend a lot of time with my youngest grandchildren. I think sometimes I am more of a kid than I am an old man, but the mirror tells me differently. Rue and Eli, Evie and Ellie, and no Damon. All I have to do if I want to be entertained and delighted is to pull up the videos I have on my phone from the last 11 years and watch them for an afternoon. There’s a lot of laughter and some tears when I do that. I laugh at their antics and cry because the time has gone by so fast.
I hope I never lose my memories. A lot of people do when they get old. My Grandpa Stewart couldn’t remember who he was for the last few years of his life. My Daddy had a form of dementia which caused him to have hallucinations and tremors and other bad things. If I do manage to eke out those next 10-12 years, then I hope I can be more like my Grandma Stewart, who’s memory stayed pretty good up until she died at 100 years old. I don’t know how many of her longevity genes I inherited, but I hope it was more than I think!
For all of you my friends, I wish pleasant times. I hope you all make wonderful memories with your families and friends and leave them some in return. We have very little time here really, and we need to use it wisely. Wish I’d have thought more about that sooner, but it is what it is. You live, you work, you play, you love, and then you make your way into the “incomprehensible” ( I didn’t come up with that on my own, I borrowed it from a kiddy show we watched yesterday)
Writing for Sanity's Sake 