Words to Ponder Over: Robert McCammon

I found this extended passage from Robert McCammon's 1991 book Boy's Life.  I don't think I need to add any commentary here -- I think it speaks for itself:

“You know, I do believe in magic. I was born and raised in a magic time, in a magic town, among magicians. Oh, most everybody else didn’t realize we lived in that web of magic, connected by silver filaments of chance and circumstance. But I knew it all along. When I was twelve years old, the world was my magic lantern, and by its green spirit glow I saw the past, the present and into the future. You probably did too; you just don’t recall it. See, this is my opinion: we all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God’s sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they’d allowed to wither in themselves.

After you go so far away from it, though, you can’t really get it back. You can have seconds of it. Just seconds of knowing and remembering. When people get weepy at movies, it’s because in that dark theater the golden pool of magic is touched, just briefly. Then they come out into the hard sun of logic and reason again and it dries up, and they’re left feeling a little heartsad and not knowing why. When a song stirs a memory, when motes of dust turning in a shaft of light takes your attention from the world, when you listen to a train passing on a track at night in the distance and wonder where it might be going, you step beyond who you are and where you are. For the briefest of instants, you have stepped into the magic realm.

That’s what I believe.

The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It’s not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don’t know it’s happening until one day you feel you’ve lost something but you’re not sure what it is. It’s like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you “sir.” It just happens.

These memories of who I was and where I lived are important to me. They make up a large part of who I’m going to be when my journey winds down. I need the memory of magic if I am ever going to conjure magic again. I need to know and remember, and I want to tell you.”

Words to Ponder Over: Dr. Mary Lamia

A few weeks ago, I was at a public library when I stumbled upon this book by Dr. Mary Lamia: "Grief Isn't Something to Get Over".  Dr. Lamia, a psychologist, published the book in 2022.

 

There were a few quotes in the book that stood out for me:

"We may find comfort in focusing our attention on what we had, rather than on our yearning to restore what is impossible to replicate in the present."

"The passage of time after a loss is helpful to us as the discrepancy between past and present memories become less stark."

"A person's death is a distinct but incongruent memory, and it is hard to assimilate it into what we know and remember." 

"Goodbyes are only a single remembered event in a lifetime."

Where There Is Death, There Is Also Life....

Years ago, my mom gave me some details about the neighborhood where she grew up in Toledo.  She told me about the beautiful American Elm trees that once lined her childhood street....that is, until the day the city had them all cut down due to Dutch Elm Disease.  It was a huge loss for her neighborhood, as the streets were now bare of so many trees.  Although hard numbers can be hard to come by, it's been estimated that 77 million American Elm trees were lost to the disease between the 1930s and 1970s.

So imagine my surprise when, one day recently, I happened to be in the basement of my dad's place and I gazed out one of the windows to see, to my amazement....

Yup, those are American Elm trees, the ones my mom had lamented the loss of so many years ago.  Obviously, due to their current location, they can't grow very much, and young trees don't develop Dutch Elm Disease for the first 10 years.  At the moment though, they appear to be thriving.  It's amazing to me how life finds a way...

Life Lessons to Remember While You're Still Here

Losing a loved one (or enduring any significant loss, for that matter) can help us realize what's truly important in life.  Some of the things that used to be so important to us don't matter as much anymore, while other aspects of our lives take on new importance and urgency.  This Reddit post nicely sums up some of those with these words of wisdom:

8 lessons people often learn too late in life 

 

• Time is your most valuable resource. You can always make more money, but never more time. Spend it wisely.

• Health is wealth. Ignoring your physical and mental health catches up, sometimes when it’s too late to reverse.

• Happiness isn’t tied to success.  Chasing titles, money, or approval won’t guarantee peace of mind or fulfillment.

• People change, and that’s okay. Not everyone will stay in your life forever, and not all relationships are meant to last.

• You’ll never please everyone. Trying to win everyone’s approval only leads to burnout and confusion about who you are.

• Failures are lessons, not life sentences. Most mistakes are just stepping stones, not dead ends. Embrace the learning.

• Small moments matter the most. The quiet dinners, laughs with loved ones, or solo walks often become the memories you cherish most.

• If you don’t choose your path, someone else will. Letting life “just happen” often leads to regret. Make intentional choices whenever you can.