Life is full of hellos and goodbyes. We say goodbye everyday. It may be farewell til the next day or it may be goodbye forever. When I check out at the grocery store, I may see the clerk again, but maybe I won't. So there we are exchanging pleasantries, entering each other's lives for a moment. Then I turn and we leave without a word. The same is true with those friends and loved ones who must leave our lives. Sometimes we must say goodbye to those people, and it's beyond our control. Sometimes it hurts like heck, and we don't want to let them go, but we must. And I thank the Lord that those people can be in my life, if even for just a moment.
I've recently come to the realization lately that, just like when someone dies, when someone leaves your life for whatever reason, it's not goodbye forever. No relationship in this life is short-term or temporary. I believe we will see those people in the next life. There will be no pain, regret or hurt there, and we will reminisce of our days on Earth and the silly human things we did.
I think that when we return to our God after this life, our loved ones will be there. But there will also be those people, the ones who influenced us for a fleeting moment. They will approach us and say, "Hey, remember when we shared that conversation on the metro?" or "Hey, you're that girl who took the time to ask if I was ok. Thank you."
Even if you will truly never see someone again, I believe their influence continues to linger with you. It's why we recognize someone's face, even if we only met them for a moment. The people around us rub off on us and influence us. We influence them too.
I come back again to the subject of social media. I believe this is why we crave social media so much. We can pretend to be anti-social people all we want, but we really are creatures of connection. We crave information and association. We long to know and understand other people; it's a primal need. When people decide to leave our lives, or even to reject us, we tend to cut that connection and close that person out of our memories. But, we never truly forget, do we?
Some memories hurt too much to be remembered, but we ought to remember the pleasant memories of people no longer in our lives. We should be grateful for the influence that person brought into our lives, even if the only thing they gave us was an example of who we don't want to be.
So, where am I going with this? I'm going to one of God's greatest gifts to us: the present. We shouldn't dwell in the past but we should honor those experiences and fleeting moments which have made us who we are today. If I could go through my life again, I might change some things, but generally, I would do it all over again. My life has made me who I am today, but I make what my life will be from here out.
