On This Day

On This Day

I really love Facebook.  Don’t you?  I mean, seriously, where else can we go to keep up with one another, find the best recipes, see pictures of near and far-off places, peoples, and cartoons/memes of any subject under the sun?  Not to mention the groups we can join (no membership fee required), the chat rooms we can converse in, and we also have a place to record our life events for all the world to see--or for just a few select ones, should that be our desire.

One of Facebook’s perks is often a double-edged sword for me.  It’s the feature known as “On This Day.”  For those not familiar with it, what it does is capture the moments from today’s date and highlights them for each year that one was on Facebook.  Oh the walks down Memory Lane I take each morning!  Some cause me to smile and reminisce over past glories while others make me melancholy for hurts that haven’t quite healed.  Some leave me laughing while others have me scratching my head.  Often, as today’s reflections were, I get a little of both.

Apparently in 2014, I wrote a blog about mistaken identity.  It was good (even if I do say so myself) and I recollected the feelings evoked as I read over the words about making a name for one’s self.  How I wanted to be known as a child of God and have His characteristics flow unmistakably through me!  I still do.  For you see, whether we personally can see them or if instead someone has to point them out to us, we all have a certain something that reminds folks of another soul.  Often I have been confused with someone else and in my blog I joked about a few of those times and concluded with this paragraph:

Long story short, each of us is labeled and/or associated with some type of person. Artists, jocks, families, funny people, or what have you: we all leave a mark. We all can be confused with another, as my sister Mary and I often were because we favored in looks. But the group I most want to be associated with, the Person I most want to be known as being related to, and the attributes I most wish to emulate are those of the family of God. I want to be instantly recognizable as a child of God, as one who smiles and offers acceptance, as one whose qualities could come no other way except by inheritance, by being born with the traits and elements of Jesus Christ. If I am to be confused with someone else, may it be as a person of light so that when the truth comes out and my real identity is known, I will have found favor with those whom I come in contact with, and may I leave a sweet savor behind so that even though I was not whom they thought, I was still someone they were glad they just met.

Imagine then, to my chagrin, as I scrolled further down the On This Day page and saw a notification I had posted about funeral arrangements for a man that for the life of me I could not remember whom he was.  I was appalled!  He passed seven years ago and sure, my memories aren’t what they used to be but still...Still, how could he have mattered so much then and not be even a faint memory now?  I internally shuddered.

In conclusion, I was able to investigate and discover who this man was (a former colleague of mine that at the time made a great impression on me and so many others).  However, to not know him now?  To not automatically have his face and personality come to mind saddened me.  I wondered about my own legacy.  Who will remember me when I am gone?  Who will smile longingly at my picture and recall the good times or will I just be the one who folks puzzle over as they repeat my name over and over, trying to jog some link to it?  Thankfully, once we all reach Glory, we won’t have temporary amnesia and we will know--we will know each other fully.  We will rejoice in the creatures God turned us into as we perhaps laugh over past times and see how He worked in us even then.  Even now.  

On this day, friends, may we shine for Jesus, love as He loves, and glorify Him above all.  That’s our purpose and reasonable sacrifice.  And the best part is that it’s not even a hard task to complete.  Let’s finish well, shall we?

Thanks, Facebook for the "You Have Memories" reminder

Dear Momma,

Hey.   I didn’t really want to write you today, nor think of you if the truth be told.  But, that lovely Facebook reminder that I get each day, telling me what happened on this date so many years ago, told me that three years ago you died.  As if I could forget.  As I said, I really didn’t want to talk to you today but since I can’t seem to stop the memories once that door has opened, let’s go ahead and walk down Memory Lane for a few minutes, shall we?

Excuse me a minute while I dry these foolish tears that seem to keep clouding up my eyes.  I certainly didn’t want to cry today.  As a matter of fact, I had my day pretty much planned out and I assure you, Momma, that thinking of you, missing you, and remembering you was not part of my plan.  But plans get changed and I found myself going through old photographs and seeing you in your glory days--days that most often did not include me.  And that was my choice.  Right?  I mean, I was the one who made the choice to not be in your life while you were living it so foolishly.  I was the one who separated herself from being around such an ungodly lifestyle in hopes of sparing my child what I went through.

How could you have been so many different women to so many others?  How come they got to know you as sweet, kind, funny, generous, and as a praying woman?  How come they got to be in your realm as you made your peace with God but didn’t have the inclination to make it with me?  How could you let others so easily be a part of your family and ignore me, my new family, and Mary and her children’s also?  Why did we not matter when we were the ones who needed you the most?

Ahh, Momma!  I am still so angry at you.  I am still so puzzled as to how you could leave this earth without making things right for so many of us.  You had the opportunity--and not just when you found out about the cancer.  You had plenty of time to make amends and yet you...you didn’t.  Instead, you went on to focus your time and attention on those things that you desired in your life the most.  You were supposed to be different!  You were supposed to set the example, to raise the bar.  All of those years of going to church well-equipped you to be the one to make things right when they had been wrong for so long.  Instead, you made a mockery of the God that I know and I shudder as I wonder how you will be judged by Him for what you didn’t do.

Oh yes, I can almost hear you now.  “You think you are so perfect.  Why didn’t you make the effort to reconcile with me?  Why didn’t you ask for my forgiveness for all the hurts you caused me?  How dare you call yourself a Christian when you plainly did not honor your mother--nor your father--as you were commanded?”

And that, Mommy Dearest, is why I did not want to write to you.  Because even though it’s been three years since you passed, the lifetime that you lived was such a waste.  You had so much love to give and you did:  you gave it.  You gave it to those who only saw the part of you that you let out.  You devoted yourself to a church that has since gone on to blacklist your beloved son and his family and I daresay it would have kicked you out too had you survived.  All those who “loved you unconditionally” had some conditions after all.  

Okay, this is not what I wanted to say to you.  This is not what I want my remembrance of you to be today.  The past cannot be undone and it certainly cannot be changed.  The legacy you left behind taught those closest to you to not forgive, to not make the first, second, or third step in reconciling, and mostly Mom?  Mostly your legacy left behind is that of selfishness:  self over child.  Self over family.  Self over God.  You taught me much and so, to honor you as I am commanded, I am going to use these lessons to be better than you were.  I am going to initiate friendships and not hold grudges until my dying days.  I am going to honor you, Momma, by not being religious but by being Christ-like, with His help.  For you see, I am His child and He has shown me more about parenting than you ever did--positive parenting, that is.  He doesn’t hold one of His own in any higher regard than another.  He doesn’t choose which are lovable regardless of skin color.  He doesn’t turn His back on His children when they question, when they struggle, nor when they need Him most.

In closing, while others are anticipating the day they see you again, the reunion that they think will come one day, me?  I’m not so sure that our paths will cross again.  The fruits you left behind had nothing to do with your love but rather with your hate.  Cristi and her family are in church regularly.  Because you took them when they were your grandkids?  Ha!  Only if the others weren’t available.  Speaking of which, how did they turn out?  How much Jesus is in their lives from your fine example?  What?  They don’t go to church?  They don’t have time?  Too busy for the God you placed so highly and radiated in your life?  Oh come on, now.  Momma, surely this cannot be so for you always put Him first in your life, right?

Okay.  Enough.  Enough.

Good bye, again, Momma.  I can’t say “rest in peace” and mean it because you did so much damage to me, to Mary, to Cristi and Chastity.  To our families.  But you know what?  We will be okay.  We are okay.  You taught us how not to rely on a mother or father and since we are all orphans now, we are well-prepared.  Oh sure:  we’d prefer a good momma around to lead us, to cheer us on, to encourage us.  But you took that from us.  Did you ever really give it to us to begin with?  Sadly, yes.  And for that I miss you.  I miss who you once were.  And yeah:  I even still love you.  As I mourn you today, I mourn the woman you were and the woman you could have been.  The picture I attach to this note reminds me of her and that is the woman I miss, the mommy who once loved me.  I see it in your eyes as you looked into the camera I was holding at that moment.  My heart is whispering “I love you too, Momma.”  And  oh how I miss you!