We have them. We make them. Without them what would there be?

I often wonder about memories and how important they are to our lives, or not. With my father’s passing this year, the notion of memories and particularly his memory have been on my mind. We are spending Christmas at my mother’s house (still odd to say that) and it has been the first time for me to be back in the place I grew up in since I was here this summer as my dad was getting ready to die. I had been wondering what it would be like to come here and not have him be in this space, but to have only my memories of him. Would it make me sad again, would I miss him, would it be strange to be here without him, my last memory of him sitting in his favorite chair which now sits empty? I honestly had no idea and went into it with an open heart and mind. Well, I am experiencing something I least expected and am frankly a bit unsure with yet, and have a hard time saying on here, because I still have some judgment about it, what are other people going to think? I figure since that usually doesn’t stop me, it shouldn’t now.

I don’t miss him.

As I am reading this, I am still a little bit taken aback by the statement, but that other part in me I like to talk about so much is letting me know reassuringly that this is a very accurate statement about the way things are for me. Ever since I arrived and had this realization, I have been asking myself how this can be. How could I not miss him? How is it possible? Am I a heartless being that has no feelings? Seriously, I was shocked at first. I tried to make myself miss him. I literally walked into his office, sat at his desk and tried to make myself miss him and feel sad. I thought that maybe I was denying myself feeling those feelings because I want to be evolved or something like that. As I muddled with this for the first couple of days it began to occur to me that I may want to leave this alone, simply be with this feeling and see what happens. Interestingly enough, a whole slew of ideas around memories started to show up, and they explained to me what was happening and why it was perfectly natural.

As I say in the intro, we make memories. Let’s think about this sentence for a second. We make them. As in we create them and make them up. Literally. Every moment of our life experience is only the actual experience at that moment and then immediately turns into a memory. Every-single-moment. No exceptions. This is a humdinger, at least to me. Everything in my life outside of the present moment is a memory. In a way, even thoughts about the future are a memory, they’re just a memory about something that may or may not happen. So memories are what create me. Without them I wouldn’t be able to exist. So they are a good thing. They let me remember all the useful things in life, like walking, cooking, talking, driving, remember where home is, and to remember to actually go home, etc. What occurred to me with this insight was that this is how memories are designed  to work for us. They are not meant to limit us, by defining who or what we may be based on them. We are not supposed to be our memories, but to simply have them. Big difference. Huge difference.

This is why I do not miss my father.

I loved him dearly and we had a wonderful time together those last few weeks we spent together, and I am lucky and grateful that I got to have that time and all the times before. What I have realized in being here now is that for as long that I have lived, my father and all other people in my life are a memory whenever I am not present with them. When we are present with each other in some way, in person, over the phone, via Skype or FaceTime (wow, how times have changed), we are hopefully present enough to experience each other fully without memory getting in the way. Any other time, we are experiencing our memory of each other. Realizing this has changed my experience in this place without him. Now that my dad is not here anymore in a physical way, I am experiencing him fully in my memory when I do. It has shifted my reality. I know that he has departed from the physical plane, so I do not expect him to be here anymore, and do not miss him. I would if I expected him to be here. But I am experiencing my memories, and they show up in different ways at different times, and their quality has changed. They are no longer attached to him in the same way as they were when he was alive, they stand on their own and let me have them whenever I choose to. They have taken on another meaning. I know that I will not get to create more memories with him any longer, because he is no longer, but that is ok. It is the natural way of things. We all will depart at some point, period.

With all this I can see more clearly how memories are a wonderful thing to have, but a very limiting thing to be. When we are our memories we will go to great lengths to defend them, justify them, keep them, for if I don’t have those memories, I disappear. People go to war over their memories, because when we have a collective memory to uphold our identity, we will not allow to have them ridiculed, threatened or taken away. When I am my memories, I have to to do what is necessary to keep them, or even make others take them on as well. When I have memories, they aren’t me, so I am not at stake. Total game changer.

As we are in the holiday season, I invite all of us to enjoy our memories as something wonderful that we have. I challenge us all to remember that we aren’t our memories and in the process rediscover the moments we are in right then, so that we don’t miss them for the sake of making a memory. Give yourself and all around you the greatest gift possible, the present of presence.

Cheers,

Ralf