I will be the 1st person to admit that I have a very unique outlook on life. I see situations from a perspective that most people do not. Some people say it is a gift to have the ability to see things they way I do but I do not agree. In order to see the world through my eyes, you would have to go through situations that I would not wish on anyone. However, it is those very situations, that have given me some of the experience that I am going to use my blog to share.
I had a conversation with an old friend about how there were people in her life that she missed. This got me thinking, this is what I came up with:
You can miss someone you do not remember, but it is impossible to remember someone you do not miss.
To understand what I'm blabbering on about I am going to explain what I believe happens when you remember someone. When we remember a person, it is not the physical person that we recall, but instead it is the experiences and emotions that the person brought to our lives. For example think about someone close to you that you have lost touch with. For most people they stir up memories, good times; the smell of grandma's apple pie, the sound of Mom's voice as she sings you to sleep. That fishing trip with your college buddies right before graduation, the last good night with your ex before the relationship when south. When your remember, your mind recreates the feelings, and uses all of your senses to revive the connection that you once had with that person and for a moment, while you are in that memory, it hardly seems like that person is gone.
Lets now talk about missing a person. I believe, from my experience of losing lots of people over the years, that when we miss a person, it is not the physical person that we miss but the space in our lives that they used to fill or they would have filled. Here is my example. My biological mother died on February 13, 1996. She was only 43 years old. I was only 14. By next February I will have spent just as much of my life with her as I have without her. Its been so long that I barely remember much about her. I can hardly recall any specific situation or time spent with her but I still miss her. The reason I miss her is because I miss the spot she filled or would have filled in my life. The feelings that missing a person bring on are just the opposite of remembering. They usually leave you feeling empty and not quite whole. Instead of the warm feelings you are left with a hole where those feeling would be, but it does not have to be this way for everyone.
For most of the people reading this blog, you have acquired years of memories with a person or group of people that will enable you to remember them as often as you want, but instead, you chose to dwell on the space they left in your life and you decide to miss them. Missing people leads to sadness, but remembering people usually leads to joy. Some people do not have a choice in whether or not they will miss someone. The absence of that person is the very reason why they are missed, this is why I said: You can miss someone you do not remember.
Earlier last week I wrote a post entitled "Tick, Tock, Tick Tock" (http://misterdaniels.blogspot.com/2010/09/man-this-year-is-going-fast.html) and in it I talked about using your time to make memories and the subject I just talked about is the reason why making memories is so important. Most of us have learned already in life that it is very easy to loose someone. Death isn't the only way. Moving, new jobs, life situations change which cause our relationships to change, but as I said before, memories are the things that will not change. Plan a vacation with your family, start a family tradition do things for the sake of the memory not just for the experience; consciously create memories. Do what ever it takes to ensure that as situations change, the ones you care about the most will never miss out on you.
-Mister Daniels
