Remembering the past.

This post was inspired by a new friend I made on Facebook who posted that she misses her father. It reminded me of one of our neighbors whose son was killed in a motorcycle accident. It honestly creeps me out a little because, although I sincerely sympathize with the senseless loss of a promising and no doubt loved young adult in a motorcycle accident, there is a limit to the mourning period. It creeps me out because I see that a huge cross commemorating the deceased son is still on the front drive with fresh flowers all the time. I have also seen what I assume to be a parent hovering around the cross drinking beer and looking really sad. There’s nothing wrong with this. Unless this behavior is well into it’s third year which I think this is. I do sympathize; the loss must be very painful for the parents, family, and friends, and I respect that. But I think after three years, one should have moved on a just a little. It creeps me out because I think the family needs some sort of help in coping with this (to my mind) unseemly extended period of grief. In their defense, I know nothing of what is really going on there.

My own father passed away in my last year as an undergraduate at the University of Alberta. I was already under a huge amount of stress, trying to deal with studying for the final midterms (some exams of which I missed and had to take after I got back) and trying to cope with the politics and catching up on a lot of lab and academic work and term papers. It was a real nightmare for me. I was well on my way to an honors degree when I got the call that my Dad had died. I was in Edmonton at the U of A of course, and he and my mom lived in Niagara Falls, Ontario. I had to take an emergency flight out to attend the funeral, lugging my books with me in a hopeless attempt to study for my mid-terms in my final semester of my final year.

This was in 1991, the same year I graduated with no honors degree, but with specialization in Geology, minoring in Physics. I was a bad kid, but I had equally bad parents in that we were all ignorant and had absolutely no family skills. I often wanted my parents to see that I didn’t turn out so bad after all, and I wanted to include them even more in my life, but that never happened. I remember during the mad rush to fly out to the funeral and then back for my midterms that I did not mourn.

In hindsight, I guess I was too numb to feel anything. The only redeeming thing I remember about that period is that I had written to them many months before affirming my respect and love for them, and also that I felt they were sort of proud of me, but in an uncertain kind of way. I mean to say that they did not fully understand what I was doing. My mom is still alive and I see her once a week when we have dinner at her home, but she has many personal problems which preclude any meaningful relationship.

So I wrote to my new Facebook friend and said:

Time suffers from the Doppler effect. The future rushes at you with blinding speed, but the past lingers forever. We must therefore see that the present is the best it can be because it’s gone in a flash. Cherish your father’s memory, but remember that just as a person doesn’t drive a car while looking in the rear view mirror, a person also doesn’t live life by dwelling on the past.

I read or heard once of a supposed ancient Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

Life is so darned interesting, both happy and sad, full of pathos and wonder. I run through life babbling my way through imaginary kingdoms. Works for me.