Often I imagine, when you open someone up, peal away their layers, inside you find this pomegranate, bright in the way only nature can create. So many people have these rich lives; children, grandchildren, homes, adventures, careers, compassion. Beauty and abundance of life in so many forms. Social media exemplifies this which is why I need to limit myself, a bit like eating a box of chocolates. If I indulge too much, I feel overstimulated, lost in the sari’s of color from so many lives, people, worlds, thoughts. It’s not even the emotions, those I can relate to, it’s the living in technicolor.

When I think of what resides in my inner most self I see my old worn much loved penguin and little ted, I see me running into my grandmother’s arms. It is as if I am possessed by the past and not even present.

We are taught to live in the now or for the future. But never the past. Why? Because living in the past isn’t living, it’s remembering, it’s regressing. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t honor the past. But we must also move on from it.

If there were a house fire, it would not be the expensive things I’d seek to save. It would be my green Kermit The Frog, the pressed flower from the meadow my grandmother and I walked. It would be trying to save the past from flames, even as they climb nearer.

Occasionally I wish to lose it all, so I would be forced to start over. Without the weight of the past on my shoulders. Some people say we’d be better off if we didn’t recall the past, we’d be free of it, and able to be whomever we wanted.

The funny thing is, if I were a blank slate, I think I’d go out and start looking for much cuddled toy penguins circa late 1970s and patchy, lost fur little teds and green frogs with crayon on their eyes. I think I would climb right back where I came from. Because nothing since, has ever, ever been as dear.

19 Replies to “Dear”

  1. Interesting topic Candice. My father suffers from dementia so severe that he is hardly able to remember any of his past. Each visit involves me filling in his memory, but not for long, as he is unable to hold my new content. And he is happier and more easily contented than I have ever known. Without the context of his past.

    I’m unsure whether this is relevant to those of us who retain our historical context……but it gives food for thought. 💖

  2. I know many can relate to this. Sometimes the past can be comforting. Very nicely done, Candice.

  3. In my father’s dementia, I have seen what it is to loose one’s past. it hit me so clearly when he had been at the nursing home for just twenty four hours, and didn’t ask about his dog. It was as if he had never been anywhere else. The dog was gone along with everything else. So let me live in the present and imagine the future, but leave me my past, that long and winding road to the now. By the way, I have one of those ancient worn Teddys. My mom said she had to buy it when I was a toddler because I had pulled a ribbon bow off it in the store.

  4. Well said. I can only imagine. I have seen people with dementia but not had to endure yet the agony of it being a parent. It’s just horrific. I am so sorry you had to go through it, and he did. Did you keep his dog? With your toy you CLAIMED it! I love that you kept it. You are now officially in the ‘people I trust because they have toys’ category.

  5. I did keep the dog, Hector. He was also quite old, diabetic (insulin twice a day, which he was very good about), and going blind from cataracts (in dogs, a side effect of the insulin). He lived for about another year, until one day he lost control of his hind legs and couldn’t walk. We went to the vet. I like that we have those old toys in common. It brings a smile.

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