Excerpt from Daily Cures, Wisdom for Healthy Aging by Connie Mason Michaelis
Have you noticed that after an individual passes on, we no longer think about their weaknesses but usually focus on their virtues? My sisters and I were making that observation about our mom. Since her passing, we have continually “rediscovered” the legacy of good virtues she left us. We’ve all but forgotten the mistakes she made. Like Proverbs 31 says: “Her children will arise and call her blessed.” Our memories seem to be a result of post-mortem amnesia. But that is one of the blessings of time. Age brings a perspective gained no other way. It takes time to make plenty of mistakes yourself to know the importance of forgiving others. Generosity in our own heart allows us to have selective memory for others. Dutchman Paul Boese said, “Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.”
Part of the joy of growing old is gaining wisdom. As I reflect on my own life, it might have been better to have my mouth wired shut for the first half and then loosened, only on occasion, to share a nugget of wisdom in the second half. Our culture is so youth-oriented that if something is old, it is obsolete, and if it is new, it is the latest and greatest. I believe that perfected wisdom comes with age. My career has allowed me to meet thousands of Seniors who are repositories of life experience, wisdom, and forgiveness. Mahatma Gandhi says, “The weak cannot forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”. We don’t often think of our Elders being strong, but they are the strongest!
Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us." Oscar Wilde
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