Whispers From Beyond

                             Whispers from Beyond

I was recently introduced to an interesting feature on Facebook, by a kind friend. She showed me the “memories” feature. When you click on it, you find everything that you have written, on that particular day, in the past.  With those of us who post articles regularly, the number and diversity of pieces catches your attention.

There is one feature of this process that I hadn’t expected. When you post an article, many kind friends and acquaintances post commentary, or press the “like button,” indicating that they either agree with you or like the way that you have written the article.

In that I have been posting articles, for the last dozen years or so, some of those kind people have since passed into the great beyond. Their comments outlive them. The warm face and even kinder persona still glows with affection and caring, even though they are no longer with us. It is a “whisper of the mind “ that calls out to you in a positive manner, that is both appreciated and enjoyed.

As they whisper to you, the image in your mind surfaces of the goodness and decency possessed by the speaker. The many times that you had enjoyed their company and the many kindnesses that they had rendered to you speak warmly of who and what that person was while “on this side of the grass,” as they say. It is perhaps a small thing, but something that I much enjoy, as I encounter the name and the mental visage of those treasured friends and family from long ago,

Perhaps out of context but related, I was reminded of a few scenes from a classic Western Movie, “Jeremiah Johnson.” Two Frontiersmen were speaking of the then Indian practice of scalping hapless victims. It was a horrid practice at the time, something that the natives had learned from colonial powers, demanding a physical accounting of claimed enemies slain.

This particular frontiersman was more philosophical about the practice. He said that were he to meet an untimely end, he might like to be remembered by a scalp hanging from a lodgepole, of the rascal who had done him in. It would at least be a physical remembrance of his presence that existed somewhere, instead of an anonymous grave in the wilderness.

I think that we all leave our various foot prints, both mental and physical, in the life and times of others around us, as we pass through our time on this mortal coil. And it is probably better to be remembered on somebody’s face book page, than to have your scalp hanging from a lodgepole someplace.

In the future, I look forward to seeing and enjoying the visage of these “whispers of the mind” as I encounter them. It is an indication that goodness and decency can live long beyond our stay here.

                                       -30-

                               (482 words)

                          Joseph Xavier Martin