What is life without a record? Record without time? How do I want to be remembered? Questions that puzzled me while I was starting at my departed grandmothers casket this past week. When I took a step into the funeral home I was asked the Question, "which family?". As I quickly responded with the name I was directed to the area where the viewing was taking place. Almost as if I were handing my ticket to the gentlemen at the movie theater to view the newest Will Smith Movie out, "to your right, first door on your left". "Thanks guy!", is my usual response, but I am a little bit mournful with the loss of a loved one so I just give him a nod and walked into the room. Keep in mind, I am a 22 year old bartender that is living 2 hours a way in an apartment in Raleigh. So I come dressed to the wake with whatever I can scrounge up when I found out the news that my grandmother had passed away. Jeans and my favorite Express shirt was what I picked up and threw in my bag for the wake. When I walked in I caught the eyes of my family members who seemed to be more focused on the clothes that I chose than the reason we are all there. I walked straight over to my mother who was kind of separated from everyone else with her husbands family. I began to gaze and take in what was going on around me. As I noticed the engraving in the casket, "a mother, a grandmother", I wondered is that how she will be remembered? My grandmother who lived her own life, a long life, A life that no one will know but her, one that was buried with her two days ago. She will be known as a great mother, and a great grandmother to us all but is that really all she will be remembered as? I mean for us, the people that were there in short periods of her life, even though we all experienced times with her those are our selfish memories, the good and the bad. They are still self expressions of what we perceived with that time we had with her. Not the memory that she is taking with her. Now for us that is a great memory, all the great times we spent together and remembering how we felt during it. But, without a record of how she felt, what she was thinking about, how she perceived what was going on how can it be a complete part of the past. It is not fully remembered without that and without that it will die off forever.
Before this past week my life felt like its gas tank was running on empty. It's funny how the routine can get so comfortable and feel like its the only way to go. Through this blog of my life, I want to express how I am going to shake up the box my life is and turn it upside down and let the pieces fall out. This Will help it be a complete memory for not only myself but let it be remembered by everyone I may touch in life when they least expect it.
