My mouth opened, "Um, well, Sweetie, the Bible was written a long time ago. You're right, they probably didn't include every story, but it was so long ago I don't know what stories are missing."
My daughter continued to probe me for the missing parts for the remaining 20 minutes of our drive. She's one determined little girl.
But it got me thinking about the Bible, about our history, about stories I read and stories I write.
What parts make it into the text and what parts are omitted?
At the end of my day, after my girls are asleep, I write my husband an email. Sometimes it is short as I am tired. Sometimes it has different parts of my day in it, the cute, sentimental parts inspired by our daughters.
But there is so much more left unsaid.
I have a horrible memory. My earliest childhood memory is when I was in first grade, sitting beneath a huge evergreen tree with my sisters and neighborhood girl friends. I vaguely recall the blurry face of my kindergarten teacher, because she was a harsh, strict woman. But that is it. There are so many gaps, so many missing parts of my story.
I wish I remembered more, like the details of minor events in my life instead of just the big ones.
I like to think this blog and my email files hold those fleeting, small moments of my daughters' lives in case one day they wish to fill in the missing parts of their stories.
What parts are missing from your story that you wish you could remember?
10 comments:
I have often thought about those missing/forgotten moments of my life. Sometimes I will remember small snippets while reminiscing with my family. I am constantly being encouraged to write them down, for the next generation. Since my mother's passing, I have started doing just that, writing down the stories that I or other members of my family remember.
Let's see, I wonder if she heard someone talking about the books that didn't make it in the Holy Bible during the canon process? That is certainly an interesting question she posed.
As for me, I'm not sure if there are things that I wish I remembered so much as I with there were some pains I could forget.
It's true - I want my blog to fill in those cherished moments I shared with my kids too. The funny things they said and did. There are so many missing parts in my life especially the times I spent as a child before 6 - I can hardly remember anything during that time, except through the pictures my parents have of me.
That is part of the reason that I began writing to make sure that I could remember and ensure that there would be no missing gaps in our history. So much of my childhood is missing that I don't want the same for my son!
I wish I could remember all of the nice things people have said to me over the years rather than being so adept at remembering the nasty things. I wish I'd been better at holding on to the sweet moments - I haven't forgotten them all, but they don't seem to stick quite as well. I am working on this. :-)
So many details! I wish I had kept a journal as a teenager. And I wish I had managed to keep journaling after my 3rd child turned 2 - I was pretty good for a while, but the more kids I had, the less I wrote down. When I go back and read some of what I wrote, I'm so grateful because I would have forgotten, and so regretful that I didn't manage to save more. If blogging had been "in" then I might have done a lot better.
I have found that what we miss (forget) others might remember. Find who shared those memories, it's fun to see how people remember the same thing differently.
I love when my children ask truly profound questions. I have a pretty good memory, but in writing a memoir, dealing with my personal recollection of events has been tough. How do you tell the whole truth? I guess that's why I believe in the essence of the truth, rather than the literal truth.. if that makes sense. I think that way about the Bible, too.
When my girls were little, I thought I would remember everything they did. I wish I'd written more down.
What a heartfelt post. I must sleep on it. I cannot remember anything off the top of my head that I wish I could remember.
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