I Yam who I Yam. Stop Focusing on the Cracks

This is a rant.  Feel free to go elsewhere.

The internet, the instant communication, has many pluses.

BUT

One advantage of the years before was that when you lost someone you loved, or whatever, the reminder didn't keep popping up month after month, finally year after year, ad infinitum.

It was a BIG ADVANTAGE. You could go through it. You could hug your friends for years over it, but you went on.  After awhile, while that sorrow, that pain, was a part of you, you could focus on what was good now, and what was going to be good in the future. The pain didn't pop up front and center.

I didn't grow up in the digital age. I didn't even have 4 television stations to watch until I was 11 or 12.  I do appreciate the tapes, the internet.

I don't By God need them to remind me about Sept. 11, or the Kennedy assassination or whatever. I especially don't need to put reminders on Face Book or any other media. If I am ever shot to death and someone wants to hold a Vigil With Candles, I want law enforcement to arrest all of them and charge them with macabre verisimilitude.  And I want that ticket to ban them from any resulting memorial service for me, because I will be cremated.

I have had a good life with some bumps,  A fair number.  But I do not ever want to be remembered for What I Survived. I want to be remembered for my thoughts, my love, my interests--for my life, not my tragedies.

I do not ever want to be remembered for what I lost, though that is a part of who I am. But I certainly hope the bigger part is what I gained, learned and who I loved and still do.

My brother died on my father's lap when he was 31/2 years old and I was less than two. I don't remember him. My parents mourned, and they talked about him, and he was part of their lives. I was their child, though, and they showed me such delight, such nurture and laughter.

What if that dreadful death had been recorded and they could have played it over and over again?

I would not have had the childhood, the life, or the family I now have.

They only needed to go through it once.

They had no choice. You do, unfortunately. What will you do with it?

I would add it to family records for history's sake. I'm not sure. I don't think I would ever go back.

Today, it's your choice. Do you want to remember the pain, full screen, once a year or more? Or do you want to tuck it away in a gentle space you can, but do not have to, go back to.

With  technology comes more choices than we expected.

I hope we make good ones.