The longer we are on earth also gives length to our past. We have had lots of experiences, met numerous people along the way. We have made decisions, some life changing and others major course corrections.  Yet, we are where we are in the present time. 

Let’s focus on keeping things simple about our past. Or the past may seem to take over, which is not the true purpose of former years. Sometimes things or people come up to do with our previous years and they take holt of us until. Until what?

The true value of the past — is it has given us insight, developed strengths and priorities in us. We are to make our past a beatitude for the present. I had something  come to me recently. A coaching friend saw where I had graduated High School and sent me a link to my graduating class. Mind you, this was five decades ago. Yet my classmates along with the high school and the accomplishment of graduating were special and valued by me.

I embarked on connecting to the graduating class. During which time of going through the names I noticed a favored classmate was missing. Questioning why I googled his name and up popped his obituary. Oh my. A class buddy of mine born the same year as I had passed away a year ago. It had been forty years ago since we last connected. He was special; but not that special to break an engagement with my soon to be spouse. We nevertheless connected warmly and parted respecting each other’s chosen paths.

Now I had his passing to process. I had missed our 50’th class reunion; perhaps a chance to catch up then. We are to value those things and people who make differences in our lives. We are to respect our feelings of loss and gain to do with events, happenings and people of our past. I tuned into my feelings and also what I was needing when learning of his transition from earth plane.

In this way we acknowledge our humanness and how encounters and people we meet along our path of life matter to us, to our growth as individuals. He added to my life; I allowed myself to feel blessed for knowing him. I also honored his life story, his family’s loss and how they wanted me to honor his passing, not by flowers — by donating money to the Disabled American Veteran’s Fund. 

I went a step further and sent a condolence card and asked for a family member to contact me to fill in a few questions I had about his life. They were easy ones. All this helped me grieve the loss and move on feeling I was a blessing and had been blessed by knowing him even for a little while. 

So, be grateful we have a past and know people, even in their passing these individuals can bring insights and great gifts to our present understanding and living. In taking the time to treasure life, our past, former people and decisions, we increase our life this second. We appreciate life in general, we deepen in our connection and empathetic union with one another. 

Furthermore, we each lose people along the way, we have made choices some of them not easy ones. Here we stand in the moment giving what we can, being attentive to who we are as humans with a divine spirit. And we take the time to do the most good today with what is given us to walk through, be blessed and complete.