I have no doubt you have all heard or seen advertisements for on-line data back-up for your computer. I’m sure many of you have your important photos, documents, MP3’s, and the like backed-up on external hard-drives or to DVD/CD discs. It only makes sense. Furthermore, I would be surprised if most of you haven’t had the occasion to lose valuable memories or data when a hard-drive crashed or a computer was stolen etc. If so, I have no doubt you were quite upset. I know that when it happened to me several years ago that I was. So, if we are wise we take time to back-up those files. They’re just too important to us.
Before computers were a part of everybody’s lives we kept photos in albums or in other things (like shoe boxes!) and there were many other items such as letters, records (as in vinyl), cassettes, that we treasured and kept in our homes. Did you ever see or know someone who had the misfortune to lose their home to a fire? Most people who have had that heartbreak would tell you a variation of the same thing. They’ll tell you about how they feel blessed no one was hurt and they can buy another living room set or TV, but the photos and keepsakes are all gone and the loss of them is devastating.
I lost my grand-father when I was 11. We were very close. But, I was just a kid and I didn’t think about losing someone until it happened. Even then I was sad and knew that I would miss him, but I didn’t have a clue how much. He was my mother’s father. Through the years I have heard my say, “I wish I would have asked Daddy about that.” We are all guilty of taking each other for granted. Our lives are busy and full and the old saying of “You don’t know what you’ve lost ‘til it’s gone” comes to mind. The same goes for our loved ones and our friends. Is there anyone out there that if given the chance to ask a question of a loved one that has passed away wouldn’t jump at the chance? But we can’t do that. It’s not like while we’re alive we can plug-in to a hard-drive and download our memories, wisdom, experiences, thoughts, emotions, and feelings so that our loved ones can have a way to ask those questions when we’re gone. No, downloading is not allowed.
Or is it? What about spending time with them asking them about these things? Better yet, turn on a tape recorder/digital recorder or video camera and ask them just about anything you can think of. Behind our old farmhouse is a large gully. At points it is deep enough for 3 grown men to stand on each other’s shoulders and not see over the rim. It’s 20 to 30 feet wide in places. I remember that gully not being that big when I was kid, but it was still there. Well, this got me to thinking about it and I asked my mother how big was it when she was a kid. That’s when I learned how the gully came into being. There’s a road that goes over that gully and winds down past my great-grandparents homestead and then eventually dead-ends into my place about a mile further along. Back in about 1921 there were some neighbor kids who had to walk down that road to get to the one room schoolhouse near our farmhouse. When it rained hard water would stand in a low spot over that road making it hard for them to get by. So, my grand-father got his mule and plowed a furrow in his pasture allowing the water to escape into the furrow instead of standing in the road. Until then there was no gully at all! But by making that furrow with his plow it started something that is what it is 90 years later. If I had not thought to ask my mother about it, this seemingly unimportant bit of knowledge would likely have been lost once she and her brothers and sisters pass on. I think you get my point.
More importantly, there are “mysteries” that we just didn’t think to ask about when we had the chance. Next to my grand-parents graves is a small grave with a small marker that simply says, “Infant Girl” and it shows that she was stillborn in 1924. She would have been an aunt of mine. NOBODY knows anything about the circumstances of that tragedy in my grand-parent’s lives. Why? Because nobody asked. I’m guessing she was stillborn, but for all I know she was born alive and died the same day. We just don’t know. What a sad thing for my grand-parents. What a burden my grandmother must have carried until she died at 86.
So, what I’m saying is take time to “download” as much as you can from your loved ones while you can. Love them and share their lives. Share their memories and wisdom. Then pass it on along with your memories, experiences, and wisdom before someone says of these things “downloading not allowed”.
No comments:
Post a Comment