Back over
If you could live
your life back over would you want to? If on dying you were given
the opportunity to relive your life as it was or accept the unknowing
nothingness of complete oblivion what would you choose. I would take
the oblivion. My decision might be different if I had control to
change things by using the wisdom that does come with age. We older
people are not torn by jealousy or desires We know that whatever we
lust after loses it lustre after attaining it.
If it was possible
to dip in and out of our life stream to bring peace to an event where
there was anger or fear that perhaps might change my mind.
Even then would that
be enough to make you want to live it again I doubt as it would be
like seeing Shawshank Redemption over and over again. It is the
unrolling unknown that brings the life into our existence. And the
magical moments that live in our memory.
I mentioned to my
neighbour Ted who was a member of the U3A the subject I would be
writing about in this month's creative writing. I asked him what
would he do to change his life and after reflecting for a moment he
said he would change things so that he would be living in Scotland
where he was born.
I asked why were the
people better or was Edinburgh so nice a city to be attractive enough
to want to go back? I told him I would not be offended if he said it
was the people.
He said he had a lot
of friends there but I pointed out not too unkindly I hope, that they
were all dead. He said it is such a beautiful city. He recalled a
time during the war in which he was involved, manning a Landing craft
support ship. It was just after D Day he returned to Scotland and
getting out of the train he walked up the main road from the station
with all the historic buildings bathed in sunlight with few people
about and the feeling he had was that the whole scene was bathed in a
ethereal light it transformed his features at the remembrance.
I did wonder if it
was the sunlight being such a rare sight in Scotland. But I didn't
say that to him either.
There is a
philosophy that suggests we ought to accept what is happening
including our thoughts each moment. If adopted it will mean life is
no longer a struggle to fight to change what is.
In today's paper the
young woman dancer who lost her leg in the roller coaster accident
says she would not change what happened to her as it made her a
better person.
In my case if I was
able to go back in time to reassure my parents when the bombs landed
all around us in Gosport that we would all survive the war and there
was no need to evacuate to the Isle of Wight it would have changed
everything for the better. The IOW experience was good but coming
back to the mainland was too much of a sacrifice.
But I know if my
mother had the same question put to her when she passed through the
gate and had a chat with Gabriel I would not have come into the world
in the first place.
Next month "Be Naughty"
