Memories

Memories

How important are our memories? How important is the relationships that we build with the people who are closest to us in life and how does it play a part in our memories? Can you recall your earliest memories when you became self-aware of your environment, the relationship you had with your parents and siblings?

I remember my Father teaching me how to dance, he told me to stand on his feet and he would step back and forth and around guiding me as the music played. I remember my mother taking me to the first day of elementary school and how afraid I was when she left me. I remember playing kickball in the yard with my five siblings and how much fun we had. I remember the birth of my three sons, as well as the birth of my granddaughters. I remember taking my sons to their first day of school. I remember the expression on their faces when I took them to amusement park and the fun they were having as my husband and I looked on. I remember when they took their first steps or lost their first tooth. I remember my youngest son at three years old in front of the classroom doing show and tell confidently as his classmates looked on.

These are all the wonderful memories I can look back on now as I approach my late fifties and smile. It is a beautiful thing, memories.

Now, imagine yourself in the declining years of your life, your grown children having lives of their own, you are alone, except for the few friends you have and whatever activities you may have to keep you busy as a senior citizen. You have adult grandchildren, yet they are busy with their young lives. As a young man/woman you lived your life partying, traveling, perhaps so totally engrossed in a career, you did not make time for your family. Perhaps you were a drug addict to busy chasing your next fix, an alcoholic who could not stop drinking.  A parent that was too busy living their own life to think about the responsibility of raising children, a deadbeat father or mother and time passes by without one thought to the future. Before you know it, the music slows down, your body ages and slows down and your life is a series of lonely days and nights. You did not establish a relationship with your children or grandchildren and you are alone within four walls with just the echo of a Tv.

In that silence you have no wonderful or meaningful memories to reflect on....

In the vitality of youth very seldom does a person think about aging, that time in life where everything is behind them. If you are fortunate and blessed with the understanding that the relationships you have to the people close to you is the most important blessing you have, then every memory you make with them will be memorialize in their thoughts as well as yours.

I am reminded of a song by the Temptations it is entitled.

"I’ve never been to me," the song is about an old man who pulls aside a young man who reminds him of himself. He asks the man solemnly to listen to him as he begins to tell him how he wasted his life chasing empty self-serving dreams and a good time. He goes on to tell the young man that he had a family that he never appreciated nor took the time to stay settled with them and he missed out on everything that was important. He says, "I’ve been all over the world, but I've never been to me."

It is a sad song, especially since I personally know people in this situation.

You see, memories are so very important because when you're older, you can look back on those memories of family, friends and they will remind you what a wonderful life you had, the good experiences and the bad because they all have culminated to make you the person you have become.

The recollection of those memories will sustain you when you have those quiet moments as a senior citizen. It is not just the memories you build for yourself that is important, but the memories you contribute to others as well. When someone close passes away, once the mourning passes what comforts you most is the memories of that person. It is the memories that keep that person alive in your heart.

Memories are sometimes taken for granted; they are an essential component to the human psyche. So while you're young, vibrant and full of life, take time to make wonderful memories with the people in your life, I can tell you personally, you won't regret it.

If you do not, you will have a lonely and sad life in your senior years .

And Always remember to tell someone you love....I love you.