Hope For the Past

I was listening tonight on CBC Ideas, the topic was aging.

I recently lost my father, and wish that I had been able to have shared some of the thoughts in the segment with him. Part of the segment was on how life is just a story. Now this is a theory I came up with a few years back, or I thought I had. Obviously I was not the only one that was thinking like this.

Regardless, I liked this viewpoint. The Story of Us. You will hear me talking about it quite often.

Our past can often bring up painful memories for many of us. The reason I prefer to look at our past as just a story is because it removes us from being the central character, it can allow us perspective. When we read a story or watch a movie we learn lessons. We experience pain and hurt, and at the end of the chapter we accept that it is over, and gear up to turn the page.

When I arrived at this time in my life where I needed to realize my past was just a flowing narrative, or one could say a story. There where others that were insistent that I read some of the pages over and over again. I refused, as it seemed silly to me. The book was not over and I wanted to get on to the next chapter, or episode, or movie. If you are forced to read a page over and over again eventually one out of sheer frustration one would foreclose on the narrative, and in my life at the young age of 40, at that time 37 this of course was not and is not an option.

In my mind the story never really ends. Even in death. so why do we get hung up on a chapter that has been more painful then we would have preferred? Why do we not look at the lessons we learned, focus on the amazing music that was heard, and what we learned about ourselves, the vulnerability of others, and the frailties of being human, which make each of us such beautiful creatures. Why not focus on what we want to share rather than what we hope to receive in the giving. There are so many lessons like the one mentioned in the last sentence learned and yet to learn differently in the future.

The reason I am writing this tonight is because there was a poem I wanted to share with you. It is about hope. Not just for the future but for the past as well. I tuned in halfway through the program and caught a few lines, and was so enamoured that I had to find the pod cast and listen to more. As I new it would be, it was wonderful. I wanted to share something with you that I found pleasing.

Here it is:

Thanks, Robert Frost

Do you have hope for the future? someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end. Yes, and even for the past, he replied, that it will turn out to have been all right for what it was, something we can accept, mistakes made by the selves we had to be, not able to be, perhaps, what we wished, or what looking back half the time it seems we could so easily have been, or ought... The future, yes, and even for the past, that it will become something we can bear. And I too, and my children, so I hope, will recall as not too heavy the tug of those albatrosses I sadly placed upon their tender necks. Hope for the past, yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage, and it brings strange peace that itself passes into past, easier to bear because you said it, rather casually, as snow went on falling in Vermont years ago.

By David Ray

I just came from a family dinner tonight, which was quite pleasant. Some of us looked fresher, and some looked a bit more weary, but we where together, and it was a gift, I hope for all of us. I know it was for me.

Here is to the story. The Neverending Story. Pages turning, new chapters, and yes sometimes we even have to say goodbye to old friends, but the story is forever. That is how I wish it.

I hope this note finds everyone well, and loved. Good Night.