First off… Happy Halloween…
Sometimes life catches you by surprise. You go along doing your own thing, having fun, and every once in a while you stop to think… how will I be remembered? This thought crosses your mind particularly as you get older… and you see more and more friends your age or a bit older passing away. I think about it every so often. How will I be remembered… what will family and friends think of me and my life after I’m gone. Maybe everyone thinks about this too. Well, at least while you are still among the living you can do something to change or enhance what they think of you. The flip side of the question… “How” will you be remembered is perhaps not as much as in “What” they will remember… but maybe really how… as in what method. Just playing, without thinking about it too much, I accessed my blog to see that I had over 600 entries. Wow. Even more surprising that I had not only more “views” or “hits” than I would have imagined, but also world wide hits. Double Wow. So maybe the “how” will I be remembered is not only in “what” they will remember, but in the method to be remembered. If you’re not famous, it’s usually simply family info passed down to, from, and by your family and friends. Or a grave marker. Both fade into the forgotten past rather quickly. Then there’s this modern marvel… the internet and the “Blog”. Perhaps for normal people, this may be a way to have not only a few moments of fame now… but maybe a few more remembrances after you are gone. Perhaps with a bit more insight to the real you beyond what might be passed down or engraved in stone. An little more insight into your day to day life, your sense of humor, your beliefs and feelings… all right there in your “blog”… for family, for friends, or for that matter, the whole world to see. You own life’s story, or just a part of it… the bits of pieces of memories that make up you. What you loved and cherished most in life. Bits of wisdom that may comfort and help someone get through a bad time. Something a bit more accessible and remembered then a few words spoken at a wake or carved onto a stone that will soon be lost to time. My outlook or hope for all of this? I knew very little about most of my family beyond my parents. Grandparents only bits and pieces… nothing about who they really were as people… how they lived… their thoughts and feelings. Seems like such a waste not to know these things. I do believe there’s in some degree a genetic disposition for personal taints and personality inherently passed down to later generations. In some way there’s a bit of my parents and grandparents, beyond that of physical contact learning, that contribute to personality and disposition. It would have been nice to see that connection between me, my parents, grandparents, and so on. And if nothing more, simply know more about them and their life. Never in the recorded history of time, has the normal everyday person had more ability to communicate to others, and communicate beyond their death then by the written word, electronically preserved on the internet [ a blog ], for everyone to see, forever. Should something unforeseen happen before I’m ready, it’s a comforting thought that my grandkids (or beyond), when they are older, might question and understand better, all that was me. So that’s one of the reasons why I write in my blog. It started as something small… a simple way to share with family and friends… and now perhaps more importantly… something a bit more profound… a somewhat detailed remembrance of what was me. Wow… there’s a pause for a serious thought. Yep, we’re all mortal, and I’m sure we’d all like to be remembered, so that we are not a fast fading memory that is gone after a generation or two. Wouldn’t it be something to have your great great grandkids (or beyond) be able to read your words, know your thought’s, experience in some small way your feelings about life… and perhaps guide them or help them be a better person, a more happy person, or just have a better sense of family history. Someday they may just question how I lived and who I was… and they will be able to, at least in some small way, get some of those answers. Guess we all want to be remembered… and a few forgotten words and a grave marker doesn’t leave much behind. I certainly would be delighted and spellbound to know the life experiences of my family’s generations that came before me. So as I said, that’s one of the reasons I blog. Family history and information passed down by word of mouth fades fast, personal journals and writings are lost or turn to dust… perhaps electronic preservation will not only survive the test of time, but be ever so much more inclusive as to how someone really lived, how they felt, what they experienced, what they believed… and as a part of you… will live on forever.
Well, that’s takes care of my serious moment for the month, and then some. Just something to think about. So how will you be remembered? There’s two parts to that story. Those that you share life with right now, and those those beyond your lifetime. Right now, you can do good and memorable things with family and friends to share with them now, and be fondly remembered should you depart this Earth before them. And part two… leave behind accessibility to information (a blog) so that someone can know about you after current memory fades into the past. Maybe gone, maybe somewhat forgotten over time, but something will still remain to tell your story. Be a positive or comforting influence on someone… one could only hope. Have someone be interested about you as a person and how you lived… a comforting thought to me. For now… I’ll just continue on my merry way… knowing that family and friends can read my blog and perhaps bring a smile to their face. Trigger a happy thought of time we shared together. Recall a past memory to keep it alive. Or simply to let them now that I was thinking of them… and now they of me… and to share a bond over the miles, and over time.
Ya just never know all the possibilities… or who you might touch with a thought… spark an imagination… or inspire to be a better person… or just give them a smile in the middle of their day. Ya just never know.
I was surprised to see so many people reading my blog… wow… and that’s a delight and comfort to me.
( here’s some samples )
Simply amazed!
Here’s a convenient link to get you there quickly…
and… Thanks for reading!
And in the mean time… enjoy your day!
