Re-visioning My Life

Roaming Facebook recently, I ran across a name that called up ghosts, ghosts that had walked the dark corners of my mind off and on for more than 35 years.

My ties with this woman had been severed when I slammed the door on a relationship with her brother. She was a girl then, still in high school. I had thought of her almost as often as I’d thought of him. I felt I’d been a bad role model. What if the events that had left such a mark on my life had damaged hers? But I never felt free to try and find out; she was behind a door that needed to remain shut.

So I was apprehensive; but when I contacted her, she was gracious. She is a wise woman with a good life and I felt a burden of guilt slip away. 

Her brother died ten years ago.

Her loss and grief at losing him rang through her written words. I saw photos of her sons, one of whom looks much like her brother at 20. As I studied her son’s face, still sweet with the innocence of unscarred life, another burden slipped away. I was able to re-vision her brother the way he might have been if things had been different. And in doing so, was able to re-vision that part of my own life.

The change became possible, I think, from looking back through the lens of her love instead of through the lens of my fear.

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