Lent used to be the time for Catholics to reflect on our past so we could make a brand new start at Easter.
But reflecting on the past, even looking forward to the future, gets a real bum rap nowadays. Pop psychologists say to live in the moment, move on and let go of the past.
But last week, in less than 24 hours, I ran into my first love, randomly came across one of my old yearbooks in a box of knickknacks, and talked to a friend I hadn’t heard from in over a decade. While I tried to “stay in the now,” life was calling on the back line, and it would have been rude not to answer.
The first stop on my trip down memory lane was with the sweet 16 who stole my heart all those years ago. We didn’t part harmoniously. I was a typical teenage boy, and when I decided it was time to move on, I did so without much warning or thought as to how it should be done. I just snuck out the back door of her heart.
Now I know all is fair in love and war, and an age-old case of puppy love gone wrong isn’t a national emergency. But running into her gave me the chance to tell her she changed my life for the better, that she didn’t do anything wrong, and I was sorry if I caused her any pain. It also made me realize old habits die hard and maybe I still have a few I should break when it comes to how I wage romance.
Reminders of past
The next day I cleaned out my garage, one of those things I avoided at all costs for the last four years because I didn’t want to get bogged down in the past. But since I was having trouble fitting my car in between the clutter, it was time.
In the middle of a whole lot of junk, I found one of my old high school yearbooks. As I thumbed through my pubescent dreams I happened upon those corny senior sayings meant to sum up all your childhood memories and hopes for the future in one trite phrase. I read mine and all of my friends’, accented by the silly nicknames we gave each other.
After excusing the bad poetry and the uneducated optimism of youth, it reminded this fast approaching middle-age guy of all the energy and verve we had. It also reminded me of how involved we all were in each other’s lives, how intertwined were our identities, our goals and our fun. It’s hard to think about that period of my life without them.
The next day, I called one of those old friends out of the blue and found out he was having another baby; I didn’t know about the first one or the wife he had.
We compared notes, blessings and hard knocks. Then we talked about the good old times, all the things we did or didn’t do. What we remembered most was how we were always together back then, regardless of what we did. We were a team.
Then it hit me — what all these memories and magnifications of my past had in common was people — people who made me care and made me feel cared for.
Now maybe living in the past is not a good idea, but every once in a while a forgotten moment or two can remind us what our lives are really about.
Maybe they will help us to see how much we have grown, or how we still need to grow.
They can reinvigorate us and remind us of how we wanted to take on the world, and help us to rediscover all that energy we once had.
But ultimately, hopefully they can remind us most of the people whom we loved and who loved us, and how important it is for us to appreciate them.
And in those remembered moments, we just might find our future too, and all the reasons for living “in the now.”
A few weeks ago, I walked into my corner coffee shop expecting smiles and salutations because it was Valentine’s Day. Instead, half the people in there were down in the dumps because they had nobody to love.
I left the place wondering whether I should be in a bad mood, too. After all, I was single. (Egads!)
Our culture feeds us so much desperation when it comes to love that we all feel like if we don’t have a relationship, we’ve got nothing. But does Cupid have a monopoly on love?
I found my answer the next weekend at a big family gathering at my best friend’s house. His brother-in-law’s mother, Theresa, grew up in war-ravaged Vietnam, where she survived more than a few REAL heartaches.
Love finds a way
She was left behind in 1975 when Saigon fell, while her mother and sisters caught one of the last U.S. helicopters out. A year later, she and her husband and child escaped to Thailand, where they were imprisoned before being transferred into a refugee camp. They found asylum in France for three years before finally making it to America.
For the next 20 years, Theresa lived the American dream, working as a hairdresser and raising two children with her husband. But then it all fell apart. After 25 years of marriage, divorce robbed her of her identity. She wanted — and needed — to get it back.
She spent her vacation that year in France working with the poor at a Benedictine monastery, and it changed her life. Three months later, she left for a month-long retreat at a convent in Chile where she could work at a nearby hospice for the terminally ill. Theresa shaved them, bathed and dressed them. She ate with the nuns and lived like a nun, studying and praying.
But still something was missing. “I was afraid I was going to get sick,” explained Theresa. “There was no real hygiene, no gloves. I asked God, why do I have to do this? Maybe I can serve God in some other way.”
Theresa found her answer in an old man with sores covering his body. “I could never bring myself to touch him,” recalled Theresa. “Then one day he begged me for help into the tub. I decided to touch him with no gloves. I washed him, slowly and kindly. Then I put cream on his body. God came into my heart. I lost my fear and my pain.”
A change of heart
From that day on, dirty diapers, dysentery, the smells, the ghastly sights, none of it bothered her anymore.
When she returned to America, one of her customers, Mrs. Miller, had died. She went to see Mr. Miller to express her condolences and found a shell of a man.
The 83-year-old former economist who still worked as an expert witness was in good shape physically and financially, but after losing his wife of 60 years, he also lost his will to live.
Theresa had an idea. She invited him to Chile with her the next time she went, hoping it would help him like it helped her. But Mr. Miller was Jewish and felt uncomfortable going to a Catholic convent. He politely declined.
A few months later Theresa headed back to Chile, this time for a year.
At the Mother Teresa Congregation, she tended to 36 handicapped children, feeding them, playing with them and rehabilitating them. Then she headed off to the Little Sisters of the Poor nursing home for the elderly. Finally, she cut hair one day a week for the poor in the chapel.
One day, Mr. Miller called. He’d had a change of heart.
He joined her there for two weeks, and just like Theresa, he lived, worked and prayed with the nuns. He cleaned, bathed and fed the weak and the sick. “When I was in America I felt so old,” he told Theresa one day. “Now I feel young. I want to live again.”
Mr. Miller returned five times that year to work with Theresa. When he left for the last time, the poor, the hungry and the infirmed all gathered and embraced him.
Theresa returned to Maryland later that year and was asked by Mr. Miller’s daughter to take care of her father full time. She agreed.
And they both lived happily ever after, with a whole lot of love to show for it.
