Many of us have those images that we carry with us. Images that can refine or tear down closely held Values within us. Maybe you know what I am talking about. These are the images fixed in moment in time that we sometimes we wish we could forget, or that we never want to forget. Maybe we remember because it is grief, didn’t make sense, is part of a great success, or any other host of reasons. For some it is pain of the flashbacks of tragedy, for others the beauty of beginning of life. For many people it is both.
It was cold out.
I had made the 20-minute drive once again to my Father’s house in Veneta, Oregon. Mostly known now days for the Oregon Country Fair. Veneta actually really does exist the other 360 days out of the year as a bedroom community of Eugene, Oregon. I don’t remember the drive there, or home, probably because I had done it hundreds of times.
My Father was dying and I had to go to his house to provide respite care. I had been at my classes at college in Eugene, back to my job at the church, home to my wife, and now out to take care of my Father. We talked that day, but mostly I watched my Father’s weakening figure sleep in a pain killer induced slumber. My Father was strong man weekend by his 2 year battle with cancer. I think he had actually been sick much longer, but only after a couple of years of feeling poorly did he seek help medically.
As I left, I drove out of the rainy driveway reluctantly headed back to Eugene, and as I looked over at the old house I saw my Father raise up and wave his hand at me in the foggy window by his bed.
In the moment I felt the weight of leaving, the weight of staying, and the weight of the impending loss.
For years after, that memory of that cold February day, could bring me to tears or sullen mood. Even though that day was not my Father’s passing it has come to symbolize the end of His life to me. It was His way of saying goodbye. It was, and is a powerful image to me. Even as I write now, it brings me into a mixture of sobriety at the experience of the moment, and joy in the knowledge of my Fathers freedom in the after-life.
These moments sometimes help us and can sometimes hinder us as we live our lives from this point forward. We find ourselves looking at these moments differently as time puts its inevitable space between us and that event (now 20 years ago for me). Yet at times, for no apparent reason, it quickly comes to mind. It is important to remember that the power of these events cannot be measured against the events in other people’s lives because it is distinctly your own experience shaped and shaping your personal Values.
Some of our memories, and powerful experiences can create prisons from which we struggle to escape. The memory can en-cage us in a place that seems frozen in time. Maybe that is the case for you today.
These thoughts and emotions can keep us in a place of stuckness.
We may start to avoid the thoughts and emotions thru distractions or coping strategies all the while noticing that the more we avoid the more strength they seem to gain. Some of our actions when we have these memories are more helpful than others. Some actions are healthy leading to growth and direction, and some can be avoidant of tough feelings even downright destructive.
I realized after several years, and the wise words of a friend spoken in passing, that nothing seems to cement these difficult images as much as feeling that I violated my own value system in the process of this image being created.
For several years I felt guilt for leaving that day and the image would remind me of that. With time and reflection, I have come to know this and other moments as sacred memories of the passing of my Father, during which I was not able to provide him with all of the care that he needed. I have accepted that it was better for him to have help from another caregiver for his own values of dignity and personal respect. The gift I was given, was to spend those times and days with him in the end of his life. It was in the moments that we mended old wounds and I received his simple Arizona cowboy wisdom about life that I have found to be more helpful than half the books I have read. Reconciliation was the Value that was important and God gave him and me that gift.
2 years later as I lay in that same house, and in that same room that the hand in the window memory was created, I held my new-born daughter on my chest as I lay in the recliner.
We had just come home to the house that I had inherited from my Father 2 years before after his passing. I lay there somewhere between great joy and a small amount of sorrow because I had this new amazing creature in my life and I couldn’t share it with my Father or my Mother who had passed suddenly 8 years before. I hold that memory as even more dear today as my daughter is heading to college in 2 months and is looking at her future journey as an adult. This was the place that one life had ended and a new life now resided.
I know that she will experience her own memories. Some will stick with her like the hand on the window or the little child snuggled close, and many will flash on by with time fading in their importance. For those that were created in inevitable difficult circumstances I hope and pray that she will accept and not avoid. That she will look to those internal values that are important to her and seek out an action that affirms rather than violates those values.
These images shape us, they can encourage and can discourage us, but most importantly they teach us something.
Values such as compassion, connection, respect. At the same time, they can remind us that turning away from our Values can create lasting challenging images that are difficult and influential to our lives.
I have never met anyone that hasn’t violated some sort of personal value at some point in time. The key to moving forward in life is what you do with those images now.
Do you re-orientate and redirect your actions towards your values? Do you express the same compassion to yourself that God gave and gives you? If you find yourself reflecting on an image today that is closely held and powerful in your life I encourage you to look at how the importance that this closely held image informs you about your Values. How can you use that information to move forward and live more fully into your Values? For more detailed information subscribe to my blog and receive a free 3 part email on defining and living into your values.
Gene is Husband to the amazing Daleasha, Father to the amazing Daisy, Nate, and Silas, lover of Christ, licensed counselor, ordained pastor, writer, and artist. Gene is originally from Veneta, Oregon and currently resides in Washougal, Washington. As Therapist in both local Eugene agencies, as well as private practice for 15 years, and as a Lead Pastor in Springfield Oregon for 5 years ( along with many other church based ministry roles thru the years) Gene has a heart for those that are both in the spiritual and mental healing professions. As an artist Gene focuses on sculpture and functional art items that take up space and have to be noticed.
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