Everything that has a form within our field of vision changes. Steel rusts. Stone crumbles. Hair disappears and then reappears elsewhere. People age, move, and eventually move on.
Yet it seems we all are driven by an obsession with immortality – or at least to leave our imprint behind so that our time here might mean something.
To anyone . To ourselves.
A marker …a legacy .. an asset by which our lives might be defined in the stories told by those who remain here to tell stories after we leave.
We fruitlessly try to control the narrative of a future story shared by another raconteur.
This may well be a fools errand, yet it does have an upside, if we assign the correct use to the obsession.
I had a dream last night. I dreamt that I was in the Lord Beaverbrook Hotel .
The Lord Beaverbrook, aka Max Aitken, left a mark to be sure.
I mean, to start, he was a Lord, right ?
He had a hotel, university buildings and even the residence I spent my sophomore year in named in his honor.
We lovingly called it Animal House and we behaved in a way that probably wasn’t consistent with the future story he imagined.
Nonetheless, Lord Beaverbrook definitely established a narrative that would define his life to many.
Of course he did – he was a media baron.
But back to dreamland – I was in the elegant hotel restaurant with a single friend of mine. Over the course of our lunch I realized other friends began floating in.
Friends from Fredericton, friends from Montreal, friends from Rosemere, friends from Banff and Toronto, friends from Australia, Poland,Italy, New York ,Holland Florida, Calgary and Vancouver.
Friends from pretty much every educational course, athletic activity, bar, restaurant, career stop or happenstance that had paused me long enough that they left a mark.
I began to have this awareness that, though they were all, you know, a little older and maybe a little wider, their smiles were the same.
And the smiles were just lighting up my heart.
I’ve had this statement that I’ve circled in my mind – a mantra -about seeking immortality achieved in the material will eventually be as gone as my ponytail.
It goes like this “the surest path to immortality can only be found in the acts of our lives we do for others. In those acts we reside in their hearts. Only there, in the heart, can we establish the possibility to transcend our existence here.
Often these acts go forward in stories told of how someone did such a kind thing, one day for us.
I lost two friends in the last couple of weeks.
I suppose that’s why I had that dream last night. I dreamt of all of you and others who have resided in my heart for as long as I can remember.
On the threshold of existence, one of the two, gave me the most meaningful lesson I have had the privilege of being exposed to.
“ When you remember me, don’t think only of the wild and crazy times … think too of the moments we were bored …the moments we did nothing but be together.”
At first, I didn’t take his meaning.
Thankfully, not long after I hung up the phone, like a dream, he whispered the message again. Only this time it was my heart, not my ears that heard the message, and helped me to understand.
I believe he was saying:
“ From the view I have now. I’m telling you it’s all precious.”
I feel blessed for those things that are seemingly invisible.Things that words or film can not do justice.
Things like Frendship
Family
Grace
Kindness
And the most ethereal of all – Love
All indescribable. The only way they can be fully valued is to experience them.
Value everything – above all that which you cannot see.
This post is dedicated to two that live on in my heart: Paul Johnson, and my dear friend Kevin Flynn.
Making a better past 