Memory Beads

Thoughts About Life and Death

I believe that life is a precious gift, worth giving our very best to. Our memories are the polish that makes life shine. I believe that as we live we collect these memories, like beads on a string. If we are lucky the beads are brightly colored and sparkle with laughter and sunshine; but occasionally the bead we are given to collect is black with loss, sadness, sorrow, pain, and tears. Since death is a closed door for a future that could have been and is no more, death is one of the dark beads we don’t want to collect.

But death is a fact of life; when life gives us deaths dark bead we must remember that if we hold that black bead and turn it, there will show within the beads darkness spots of sunshine. The sunshine of a smile, laughter, touches, a game well played, a fish well caught, sharing of good and bad times; these sunshine memories will make the dark bead even more precious.

I have always believed that as long as someone lives with the memory of another in their heart and mind then that person continues; forever remaining the age they were when the physical body was left behind by the living spirit.

I was young when I received my first dark bead. My baby sister that I was allowed to hold, dress, and feed died in her sleep. Within this dark bead are the memories of how she would put one partially opened hand on her face as she took her bottle; the memory of her turning from on her back to her stomach and back again, with wide eyed wonder on her face that she could do this small feat; also there is the memory of her first smile and the sound of her first laughter. She was only three months old when she died, I was almost six. After more than fifty years, she lives within my heart and remains that small wondrous child, with sunshine in her laughter. She was the polish that made me appreciate meeting a special person, having children, watching my own children live to maturity, meeting their special someone, and giving me grandchildren.

Remember life is a precious gift, worth giving our very best to; memories are the polish that makes life shine. Don’t let death darken your memories and your life. Let the memories of the person who has died be part of the sunshine and polish on your string of memory beads. If they are held in your hearts; if you will remember the friendship and the sunshine; then fifty years from now, as you begin to feel age slowing you down, that person will still be going strong, forever young, laughing, dancing, playing football, playing basketball, and going fishing or shopping. They will have truly become part of the polish that will make your life shine.

Anne Thomas

March 27, 2008