Posted 6-23-20
Hi to all! Welcome back to the cornbread table for our little daily snack. I hope and pray all is well in your world! I will be keeping today’s morsel smaller than normal as I have a host of activities occupying my work life today. Thank you and dig in! Note: This piece is kind of a review, but from a different angle.
Anniversaries. Today is my daughter’s anniversary and that nugget of trivia got me thinking about the many anniversaries in my like that I celebrate. I am a bit of an odd duck, as they say, and I celebrate anniversaries very hard. My wife and I celebrate yearly wedding anniversaries more and differently than most. I sincerely try to make every one a special event celebrating the most special event in our marriage’s history. We also celebrate in June the anniversary of our first date after a breakup (long story) by playing putt putt golf if at all possible. We/I celebrate the date of what would have been our anniversary before we changed it. We even celebrate places we have lived and things we have done. For example, for our 25th anniversary, I took my kids on a tour of almost every place my wife and I had ever lived in our marriage and chronicled the stories to them in a “How I Met Your Mother” format…and made a video that I gave my bride.
Traditions…we have many. Here are a few:
- When we get a fountain drink, we push the Other button on the lid.
- We always try to get unusual pictures when we go somewhere fun. Roller coasters pics, tin types at Silver Dollar City, and the ike are our favorites.
- We buy the same Hallmark ornament collections every year for Christmas for each of the kids. We also have many, many special ornaments including one special one I made out of a pregnancy test that we used to announce that we were expecting one year. (Note: My bride is less fond of that one actually BEING on her tree…but it is a tradition.
- Drawing spiders on notes and cards. We blamed an occasional HS hickey on spider bites and it kind of stuck. Note: If I spider leaves a noticeable mark on your neck, seek medical assistance immediately. We were young, silly, and in love…and still are, just an older version now.
- When our favorite wedding song comes on (Groovy Kind Of Love), we loudly exhale as if checking our breath with extreme prejudice when the line comes that says “I can hear you breathing near my ear“. We typically then hash out just how bad the flip side of that cassette single was. Big Noise…was.
So, why do we celebrate things like anniversaries and traditions? I can’t speak for all of humanity (although I often try), but, as for me, I celebrate them because I just don’t want to forget them. I never want to forget how I felt, what was going on… the deets, if you will. I care and I sort of fear not remembering. I suppose I have always been that way, but with mom’s and my uncle’s dementia, I suspect that the feeling is intensified.
I have known many, many people who have “lived” for a host of reasons, but now seem to be coasting to a final stop and I don’t want to be that person. I once asked a nice senior, living alone at her home, how she was. Her reply shook me: “I am just sitting around, waiting to die”. She was probably mid-80s and in really good health, but was alone and without a purpose…in her mind at least. To me that is hell on Earth.
Can we gather life’s experiences into a basket and relive them over and over? Should we try to? I mean…I am somewhat of an arrow without the feather in this way, so you tell me. I know and cherish my Christian purpose: To Love God and enjoy Him forever. But He has placed in us memories, for better or worse in our amazing brain that He created. Surely He wants us to revel in His goodness to us by remembering. Joshua 4:21b-24 is at least one precedent, saying:
…”When your children ask their fathers in times to come, ‘What do these stones mean?’ then you shall let your children know, ‘Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.” Joshua 4:21-4
Was Joshua using these mementos as a remembering tool for himself and for future generations? I would say, clearly, yes. But is it only the Lord’s work that merits trying hard to remember? It simply cannot be.
What say you, my friends?
#EndALZ
Update: Nothing new to report. Mom has gained weight sans my step-dad being there to feed her every day and monitor her food intake. I am hoping she doesn’t end up with diabetic problems to add to the mix. I look forward to eating breakfast with her in the morning 🙂
Dad Joke of the day:
I finally got my dream job at the guillotine factory. 🙂 I’ll beheading there shortly.
and a bonus one:
What do you do when you’re addicted to seaweed? Sea kelp
Final note: Document the important things in life. Write down accounts, passwords, insurance info…sure…but write down the stories too. I miss asking about those days of old.
