A Positive View of the Past

So many people these days are so concerned with abrogating the past, denying its value, emphasizing its negativity that I feel compelled to speak some encouraging words for this be-deviled and severly criticized thing we call : The Past.

I am referring, of course, to My Past (the only one that I really know anything about), but I think there is a lot about The Past that we all have in common. And I am also limiting The Past, in my case, to refer to a few things that happened to me within a span of time from early childhood to about the age of twenty.
So here goes:


What does our remembering Things Past offer us? What good can come of stopping for a moment in our dizzying ,stultifying Present to focus on The Past? What values, or lack thereof, does the Past reveal to us?




For me, my Past is focused on a small West Texas town where I lived with my parents during the years between 1922 until 1940.


During that time I learned how to ride a stick horse, shoot with an imaginary gun at Cowboys and Indians, how to read, how to become comfortable with myself as a sixteen-year old, how to experience my first kiss, how to appreciate the meager "things" that were given as Christmas gifts, how to understand and appreciate (to a degree) parents who were stern disciplinarians, who eked out a bare existence for the family, who took me to church and taught me that there were absolutes, there was a right and wrong in life and I was expected to do the "right" thing, that I was responsible for myself (and the reputation of our family!)

And now, how does thinking back on that part of my past, make me feel? what does The Past do for me?

It comforts me. I remember the unspoken love I felt from my parents, my brothers and sister, other relatives, friends , and my heart is curiously warmed and softened, and I am unafraid.

It enriches my value of my life now. The years of the Past speak to the brevity and fragility of life itself, and that knowledge helps me live the Now more passionately and lovingly and happily.

It clarifies my perspective; it enables me to see more clearly what is important in every stage of living.

It offers me a momentary release from the sorrows, the horrors, the fears, the uncertainties of the Now because, in my memories for a brief time, I can re-enter a fairy world-that-never-was and revel in the past joys that I experienced.

It gives me hope and a sense of purpose for living on. In the Past I hoped for many things; things; things as simple as getting a new dress, as important as who I would marry, as thrilling as what I might become . Without hope, life is nothing, and my return to the Past reminds me that some of my hopes came to be.

And So --- The Past is important to me. I go there as often as I need to, without apology.

It is as important as the Now, more certain than the Future.