Precious Memories

            For the first time all year, last week this blog sat silent with no prior notice. Not that anyone noticed and I could have posted if I really wanted to, but I decided to take a week off. And up until the last minute, I did not know what to post this week either. Then I got to thinking about how many ups and downs this year has had, and it is only half over.

            This will be the year I lost my Pawpaw, and the same goes for a really close friend, whose Pawpaw passed away while we were on spring break. They say that God does not close a door without opening a window first. Well, speaking for my Goddess, I think she did more than that. In May, my brother got married, bringing into the family a wonderful woman, the first one who has kept him straight. She also became the mother of his second child, my second nephew, who was born two months early, three days after Pawpaw’s passing. The timing of that seems significant to me. It’s almost as if someone up above was trying to remind us in every way possible that there will be a tomorrow, that we still have a growing family to love. Not to mention, Bear’s parents renewed their vows for their twenty-fifth anniversary back in March. To top that all off, Bear’s sister walked down the isle Saturday, uniting herself and her son in a new family with a wonderful man. There is no limit to what the future might hold for them.

            In December, if things go right and I stay on my toes, this will also be the year that I graduated college, six months earlier than some of my peers. I could have graduated an entire year earlier, but I think that how that worked out is how it was meant to be, no matter how much it makes me cringe to think of it.

            For the bad, there must always be good. It just depends on how we handle the bad that determines how that good goes. I believe we can all have our own fairy tale, and it boils down to our choices and how we deal. Saturday afternoon, I finished a book by Ron Rash called The World Made Straight. It was another ending of his that could not be called anything near happy and I wondered for a minute if there really are people out there who cannot have happy endings. Well, I think that because time will always move us along whether we like it or not, the past’s hold on us is only as strong as we let it be. There will be dark times that can result in regrets that will haunt you till your golden years. However, each sunrise is a new day. The new day is whatever we make it. It’s all up to us.

            I personally know people who have been through really dark times in their lives. Some of them are the happiest and most content people you will meet.  Others, the past rides them like a horse, and at times it’s almost like life has no joy for them. I think it’s all a choice. One person may come along some day who makes me think differently, but until then, you can label me optimist. I will remember bad times, but I will also hold the good times close like the precious memories they are, as I move forward. If nothing else, the living will always move forward. That is time’s blessing as much as its curse.

            I want to leave this week with lyrics to one of my favorite songs, and it is one of my favorites because of the message it holds, how true it is.

            “Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera sera.”