A Penny Saved

Sunday is not my usual day for writing anything which may end up online.

I diligently reserve Sundays for personal writing. Pages and pages of journal entries.

Sometimes as simple as recounting a weekend activity, occasionally the philosophizing I restrict from public eyes, and intermittently the notation of private fears or passions.

I have acquired a weird hobby in the past couple months. I enjoy reading obituaries. I’ll go online and pull up any location in the country I wish to travel to and read about someone who lived a life there. And tonight I stumbled across a good one.

It was the picture which seized me. I gazed at this man and felt so immediately connected. I wanted to know about him. So I read. Born in another country. His immigration. His life, his education, his career, and his family. His story. Then I wanted to know him.

I have this immense love for the elderly. A substantial respect really. My friend seemed to finally take note of this in me within the past couple weeks and now frequently observes and comments on its presence in my life. I found her surprise at this fact comical and relayed it to another friend of mine.

When the latter queried to my fascination with this generation I simply replied, “I’m a story person. They have the stories.”

They have the stories about good times and bad times. The stories about war and about peace. The stories about love, hatred, and forgiveness. The stories about life.

In these stories are morsels of explanation, solutions to setbacks, and recipes for doing it all and potentially doing it better than what has come before us.

I hear optimism. I hear humor. I hear hope.

So tonight, I’m taking a second to meditate and re-immortalize this man.

I never knew you but I thank you. Thank you for reiterating to me the importance of education (formal or informal). To listen more and speak less. But mostly, thank you for showing me there are hard things to be done in life. Difficult things like leaving your country and the familiar to commence on a new path. A path I have no doubt frightened you terribly. Yet a path which offered much joy after the fight. You and others like you are inspirations to me.