Aging

While walking today, I thought that were my life not to have been written down or remembered by others, I might conclude that it had never occurred, so sparse is my recollection of it. Those things that I Do remember must be retrieved from a vague, faraway place that is shrouded as if by a mist or fog, and which require my deliberate attention to see clearly. What value then is a life which to it's main participant becomes mostly blank space? Certainly it is nothing specific that I have done or have not done, at least not in the order that I might value it, for often I have been reminded months or years later of the affect of something I had said or done that I had long forgotten or disregarded. Perhaps the only way to fill in the blank spaces is by soliciting the recollections of others and finding a collective value among all of them. Pictures and children and possessions offer physical proof that I have existed where my memory fails me, but when I think that most of human history has been lost or forgotten, it is hard to take too seriously anything I or anyone else has done. There is a collective amnesia to every generation -or entire civilizations -which appears unavoidable so that we repeat the same mistakes and successes as both individuals and societies. Being something of a spiritualist, or at least, a skeptical optimist, I tend to think that the value of a life is measured by the love and tolerance we learn and then return to the world. Not just to humanity, but to the Universe at large as it were. That is a difficult thing to do sometimes, although it appears that good intentions are as important as results...
While watching my 83 year young mother grow older, I have noticed that the blank spaces in her memory have lengthened and become more frequent, so that even five minutes ago may partially vanish from her awareness. Yet I am inspired by her continuing good spirit despite her ailments, so that she has become not a bitter old woman rather a bemused one, and remains able to laugh at her dwindling powers. Something truly good and wonderful has survived in her, and continues to bring value to both herself and those who know her. In that sense there have been no blank spaces and her failing memory is irrelevant to the kind heart she has always shown.