Would Have Been

What is our fascination with the past? Ancestry or can we just not forget?

Our history is our past and we have writings and photos and paintings as reference. There are plots of land with headstones with names of the forgotten and even statues to some who were important a long time ago.

Our daily lives are built on the foundation of those who came before us. We can’t change history and we can’t predict the future so we must flounder in the present in what we have read that has influenced us and hopefully format a positive path forward.

Still I wonder our obsession with ‘what was then’? Is today not good enough to bring a smile without a reference to former family and friends and times gone by?

Are we so shallow?

My question comes from the post on social media about what would have been if someone had lived longer than they did. If John Lennon hadn’t been murdered at the age of 40 he would be 76 now. Would he have wanted to be 76? Would he be a healthy productive 76 or…. another John? Would he fulfill our remembrances and our dreams or just been an ancient who only had memories to reflect to?

If my father were still alive he would be 111. My mom would be 106. Folks, that is just real, real old and I feel neither would be functioning very well.

Now I’m not inhuman and I understanding feeling the loss of a loved one and remembrance of them while you knew them, but you forget the crap and try and remember the good times.

Holidays bring this out in us. Dust off the old scrapbooks and look through the blurry black and white photos trying to remember the names of the faces and what relevance they had on your life or the lives of your offspring who never ever saw them.

While we remember the wonderful soup grandma made or those biscuits Auntie Edna made, we don’t visit their graves. On a normal day of stress, phone calls, texting and tweeting and following the latest social media event, they will be forgotten. That is until the next holiday.

Yes I will remember certain people and have forgotten others who past through my existence here. A few I carry with me everyday but do not celebrate with others how they changed my life.

Tonight we turn back the clock an hour and have another chance. Should we do the same with the calendar?