It has been some time since I last wrote, but I do have an occasion to write something about. As you know, the past weekend we all traveled to North Carolina for a reunion. Friday night, while attending the meet and greet for my High School 30Th I came face to face with my own personal history. It is interesting how much we forget and how much others remember. We arrived on time only to find one person there. We made small talk for awhile and others finally began to trickle into the Lodge. It was most interesting to stand there watching people enter the room; people that I struggled to recognize, but even more struggled to remember their names. Some come easy, while others left me totally blank. It seemed that few had trouble recognizing me. While I stood there wondering who they were they were calling me by name. That was usually followed with, "do you remember me?". I guess I gave away the answer too many times without saying a word, simply by the look on my face. That is embarrassing, for sure! My memory seemed to kick into gear after they reminded me of who they were.
Admittedly, I was not much at home there. High School wasn't the greatest days for me. Those years were full of anxiety and pain. I didn't help matters much by all the foolish things I was involved in. All through High School I dreamed of being this or that, or doing this or that and life seemed to get in the way of doing those things. The power of one choice can derail a whole bunch of your life expectations.
After a while a few familiar and friendly faces came into the room. Your Mom was such a anchor for me. I was ready to bolt out the door, but she kept prompting me to be outgoing, not a strength for me. I guess more than anything I was deathly afraid of what these people remembered about me and how I had treated them, or even more so, what they remembered about my actions. That became quite clear the moment Kathy Jones (Williams) walked up to me. I knew who she was and knew she hung out with an ole friend during High School. But, I was not prepared to what she had to say to me. She said it with a smile, but she was very clear that 30+ years had not erased my words from her heart. Talk about your sins finding you! Apparently, I thought I was being funny and self-abasing when I said it, but I was totally out of touch with her reality. That goes to tell you, that what we say in jest, more often than not hurts more than it ever heals. No amount of apologies can remove that hurt.Fortunately, she was not only transparent about my foolishness, but she had lavished forgiveness on me long ago. Faced with my words, I had to realize their power for pain ever so late.
I had to wonder the rest of the evening, just how many more people I had hurt with my words.
Here's some unsolicited advice: Be very careful about attempting to establish your own SELF at the expense of others. You may consider it funny at the moment, but the power of life and death are in our words. We are at our weakest when we attempt to hurt others so we can feel good about ourselves.
Love,
Dad
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