Posts Tagged ‘emotion’

3
Dec

It May Look Like Christmas, But It Sure Doesn’t Feel Like It

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Today's Reality

We can find it everywhere – the bright Christmas lights, ornately decorated Christmas trees, radio stations playing Christmas music, and of course the Christmas sales on gift items we would not pay any attention to buying the other 11 months of the year. The countdown began after Thanksgiving, leading up to a day that is filled with great joy and excitement.

Like most people, I usually look forward to the Christmas season each year: spending time with family, exchanging gifts and good cheer, sharing old memories and making new ones, and reflecting on the year that has nearly passed. This Christmas, however, will be very different. In spite of my best efforts, I know the good cheer will be more somber, the memories bittersweet, and the reflections more contemplative. I suppose this is to be somewhat expected; the memories of Stephen’s accident are still very fresh in my mind and still weigh heavily on my heart. I doubt there has been a waking hour in the past six months when I have not thought about my son.

There are some friends of mine who seem simply amazed that I can function at all, and cannot imagine themselves being as “strong” as I have been in this situation. If the truth be told, I do not look at myself as a strong person; I may appear calm, cool, and collected on the outside, but if you could look into my heart and mind you would find I am a total wreck. My wife has commented that she has not seen me crying openly for our son, as she has been doing; what she does not understand is that on the inside I have not stopped crying since the day he died.

What is it that keeps me going forward? I believe it has been because of the need for “someone” to make sure that all of the things that needed to be done on Steve’s behalf were actually done. From making sure all of the funeral arrangements and details were covered, to handling all of the paperwork, and to being the “voice” of the family, I have focused on each task and given it my utmost attention and effort.

The last of those tasks is soon to be completed – we have received word that the monument for Stephen’s grave is finally finished and will be installed sometime within the next few days. What will happen to me after that is done? Will I still be “strong” or will I collapse into a blob of uncontrollable emotion? Or something in between? I do not know for sure, but I will find out soon enough.

In the meantime, the Christmas countdown continues…

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19
Mar

Writing Today, Remembering Tomorrow

   Posted by: Michael Bernier   in Tomorrow's Dreams

In response to one of my other postings, a fellow SharedWords member made the following comment: “In years to come pieces of your writing, like this blog, will be treasures to you and your family.”

I hope she’s right.

I’m sure it’s the wish of everyone who writes to have their words remembered long after they were written, and still longer after they have left this world. In days past, this was a lot tougher to do because of more limited access to the tools a person needed to create and properly preserve their work. In this age of word processors, CDs/DVDs, the Internet, and instant publishing, almost anyone with an idea and a keyboard can write and preserve it for posterity, even if they use nothing more than cryptic abbreviations (i.e. text messaging) or write one short sentence at a time (i.e. Twitter). And soon enough, even a keyboard won’t be needed – there are several very good speech-to-text converters on the market that take spoken words and type them out on a computer screen, and each year this technology continues to improve.

So, it seems nowadays anyone can acquire the tools to write words and make them last. But, even with all those things at everyone’s disposal, some people seem more destined to be remembered for their writing than others. Why?

Here’s my opinion: A person’s writings are better remembered for the feelings and emotions they stir within the reader than for the words themselves. On their own, words are lifeless and bland; but, in the hands of a talented writer, they can be brought to life and filled with color, leaving behind all manner of feeling and emotion as they tell their story. The better a person can accomplish that,  I believe, the more likely their writings will be remembered in the years to come.

So now I ask myself: will the things I’m writing today be remembered tomorrow?

I’d like to think so, but only time will tell for sure.

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