Treena Mielke – On The Other Side
It has been said that we remember moments, not days.
But it is from those moments; those illusive, gone in less than a heartbeat moments that we are, in spite of ourselves, surprised.
It’s cool, and, no doubt, one of life’s little mysteries not to be solved by science or any amount of rational thinking.
I had the privilege of covering an old-timers’ reunion recently. For me, it was one of those moments, those gone in less than a heartbeat moments, that surprised me with a rare delight not often found in a reporter’s journal.
I didn’t want to go to work. It was Saturday, after all, a day for working girls such as myself to keep long overdue coffee dates and chat about nothing very much at all for a very, very long time.
It was a time to chill.
Sadly, it was, apparently, that time for only some, not all working girls such as myself. I sighed as I turned my wheels north, indulging for a moment in no small measure of self-pity.
But from the moment I walked into the auditorium, and all the strangers with the nametags and the smiles allowed me to step into their world, it was good.
And, for a moment, just a quick moment in time, I became one of them, polishing off the layers of dust shrouding the gentle, soft glow of days gone by, and remembering the moments; the special, magical moments that never, ever go away.
“Tell me about the way it was back then,” I say, smiling encouragingly to the white haired strangers in front of me.
And tell me they did.
And in the telling, they became young again, and in my mind’s eye,
I saw them that way. And, as I jotted down their words, I traveled right along with them, down memory lane to other days when their life stretched far ahead of them.
And as they talked, I swear I could see, looking out of their eyes, the young ladies they once were, laughing, chatting and living for the moment, easily, with no thought given to doing it right, and certainly without the tools of self help books or coaching.
And as I sat there, my reporter’s skin thick around me, in my mind, I could hear a school bell somewhere ring, and I could visualize blackboards filled with long division equations and bordered with the carefully printed letters of the alphabet. And I could hear the chant of 30 or so students as they recited the Lord’s Prayer at the start of every school day. They did that then. It wasn’t an option, it just was.
For the men and women who attended the reunion; the friends who somehow got separated over the years, the reunion, no doubt, bordered on awesome.
But, I have to say that when the class of ’62 took the stage, they turned their attention not so much to the past, but to the future.
They talked about their sons and their daughters and their grandchildren.
And, even though the light was dim, and the sound system not the best, pride spilled out of their words. They had, whatever life had handed them, in their possession a legacy, such as their fathers and mothers and grandparents and great grandparents had before them.
I smile as I listen and I feel proud, too.
And I think about my own reunions and how the indelible stamp of my own history, will remain with me forever.
Except in my mind, there is nothing, except for wild roses tangled up in barbed wire, left of my childhood home. But, I know without a doubt that I can, in less than a heartbeat, bring back those moments in my own life too special to be forgotten.
All I need is a little help from someone who may or may not be wearing a nametag; someone who will stop and pause for a moment and say, “remember when.”