Wake Up!

“Live in the present and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.” ~source unknown

The atmosphere was filled with energy and old memories…some good…some not so good. Even though the place had been renovated since the last time I had been there it felt the same...the same substantive, speckled terrazzo floor beneath my feet…the same cold wash from the banks of fluorescent lights…the same long glass display cases full of trophies. There I stood, at the intersection of two hallways, in the nerve center of the High School from which I had graduated nearly four decades before. I had returned to share in a Memorial Day weekend of reunions, retirements and reminiscing.

It had been a weekend I had approached with anticipation, but now I wasn’t so sure. Some of the old angst and awkwardness was starting to creep back in. Only moments before I had clumsily extricated myself from a conversation in which I unsuccessfully tried to bluff my way around admitting I didn’t recognize someone. The attempt had been, needless to say, a disaster and left me feeling unsure of myself.

Now engaged in a more comfortable conversation with another “alumnus,” who was sharing a humorous story about one of our classmates, I was regaining some of my composure. The punch line to the story was truly funny and we shared a good laugh together. In the momentary pause between the cessation of the laughter and the resumption of the conversation came a voice from behind me. “Jim? Jim Carper?” I turned and came face to face with someone I had not seen for thirty eight years. Debbie looked at me for only an instant. “Jim, I knew that was you.” “I recognized you by your laugh!”

Amongst the famous and the infamous, Barbara Walters once interviewed television actor, James Garner. Her final question of the interview was, “How do you want to be remembered?” Without hesitation he responded, “With a smile.”

How will our voice be remembered? Will it be strident with aggression? Will it be muted with neglect or self absorption? Will it be remembered because the only pronouns we used were me, myself and I? Or, perhaps our voice will never be remembered because our possessions left so strong an impression our personae disappeared in the glare.

We leave a wake in the world, just as surly as a Chris-Craft gliding through a busy harbor or a stone cast into the mirror-like surface of a pond; we leave ripples, wakes and waves in the world. This lingering resonance is the consequence of living our lives. Short of complete seclusion none of us can pass through life without consequence…without leaving our mark, temporary though it may be. Even choosing to do nothing has its affect. Our wake is unavoidable and we are stewards of those reverberations. This wake of ours can gently rock others, caress them, comfort them. Or, it can be dissonant; disturbing others, jostling them; capsizing their lives.

Surprisingly, to be stewards of our own wake, to leave the best possible resonance in the world, we must do so by caring for the present; the here and now. After all, our wake, what we leave behind, is simply the reverberations of our present actions …of what breaks upon our bow today as we forge ahead through life.

What will the resonance of today’s actions look like when later we glance over our shoulder? Will our life be a nurturing resonance, like water lapping on the shore or will it break across the lives of others like a wave swamping a helpless boat. Whatever it is, it will be determined by the decisions we make and the actions we take right here, right now.

Dear God, if people only remember me by one thing, let it be the resonance of my laughter.

“Looking back you realize a very special person passed briefly through your life – and it was you. It is not too late to find that person again.” ~Robert Brault, identified as software writer and poet.

© 2010 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.
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