The Passing of Voices

Time passes without our notice when we are children, as a teen a turtle moves faster than the hands of the clock, and as an adult those same hands move at lightning speed. We transverse this earth one day at a time. And at different seasons of our lives, we seem to be at different speed limits. The passing of time can be measured in the scars left behind and the memories we leave.

We walk through this life living each day as they come and for most of our lives, we only see the path in front of us. The tendrils we leave behind in our wake affect generations in small incremental ways we may never notice. A young man born in 1922 and dying at 22 in 1944 in an accident while preparing to take his place in history leaves a short impression on the world. He left no child to carry on his imprint of DNA on a future generation, but his memory of life lives on in letters he wrote and the small acts of his life he lived.

His sister lived a long full life, but she married late in life and left no children to carry her memory. Her memory is carried in the society columns of newspapers, the obituary of her much older husband after only a couple of years of marriage, and small imprints she left in her wake. Their voices speak as a box is opened, and their words are unearthed for a generation distantly related and ready to listen.

We race through this life wanting to make our stamp on the world, but our stamp is just as important when it is small. That small imprint may even be more important than the large ones others leave behind. The steps we take leave pieces of ourselves throughout history spreading us through time. Listening to the voices of our past helps direct our future through thick and thin. Knowing where we come from helps us see where we are to go.

An impression of who a past generation was may seep its way through to a great-grandchild or further in the way that person walks, talks, acts, or deals with the waves of life. As we look in the mirror we are looking through the eyes of time. Our eyes were the result of someone in our timeline, a birthmark may mirror an ancestor we never knew, our mannerisms may not be our own but a response passed down through time. To truly know ourselves is to know our past and the key to truly knowing our future.

Our genetic history is important but the history of who we are as individuals and as a society are in the pages left behind in journals, family bibles, stories, and heaven forbid the statues we tear down. History is cyclical if we forget the past by throwing away blocks of rock and rewriting our stories to fit the political climate of our nation we risk the outcome of our futures. Narrow mindedness is in our past, present, and future with the paths we boldly stomped down. Hate can be resolved by remembering, forgiving, and stepping together into a future with the knowledge of our past not forgotten but learned from.

The passing of time leaves impressions on our minds and souls as we take our steps in this world. Our steps leave impressions of who we were and how we live in the imprint of others down the line we make. Does the impression we leave create a ripple that others will learn from? Will they listen to the voices we leave behind to grow from or will they pack them away to be forgotten? Only time will tell if the voice we leave behind will be listened to and learned from, but the voices left for us are waiting to be heard.