Like it or don’t like it, but one day, each and every one of us will become a memory. It never fails to surprise me the wonderful memories families share with me when I am preparing a service. and, it brings comfort to them when memories start to coming flooding back as stories get told. A very good friend of mine went through a very hard time not so long ago, she lost her eldest son very suddenly due to an undiagnosed genetic heart condition. He left behind two young children, who had only just started making memories with their dad, then not so long afterwards, she lost her husband to cancer, again the grandchildren where only starting to appreciate making memories with granda.
In the wake of all this, my friend decided that instead of stashing money away to leave an inheritance for them, she was going to spend it on her two grandchildren and make wonderful memories with them. Surprise trips to Man United for hospitality dining and seats in a box, trips to New York, holidays in Europe including a beach holiday in Spain, a holiday that saw two teenagers become youngsters again playing in the sea and making sand castles in the sand – they have weekends away, they have pizza nights, they ‘do lunch’, they make a point of having fun together at least once a month, doing things that money can’t buy. Yes, she could have left them money, but money can be here today and gone tomorrow, when her time comes to be a memory, her grandchildren will have some wonderful memories and photographs to share with their own children.
I sometimes wonder, that in this modern day world, full of technology, will we forget to make memories? Photos get taken on phones, but hardly ever printed off, for birthdays and Christmas, it’s easier now to hand over money for someone to get something themselves – what will those memories be? When I was growing up, memories were made when we talked about the ‘awful jumper’ you got from your aunt, the ‘cheap perfume’ you got, that you used as air freshener, these are the things that memories are made of. Will we lose the art of conversation, because we are all on iPhones, tablets, computer games? What will our stories be and who will tell them?
Hours turn into days, then to weeks then to years, sometimes it feels that life has passed in the blink of an eye – with all the pressures in life today, what memory will you be? If you do something today, you can’t undo it tomorrow. It will be a memory etched in your mind. Don’t put life on hold because you’re busy worrying about tomorrow. Live your best life now, store and share memories instead.
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