There are many times when we think nothing really happens in our lives, nothing spectacular or worth saving. But what if you lose the last five years of your life? Would you feel like you have lost something that is very important to you? Would you want to take it back?
The movie “The Vow” made me think of just that. (For a very brief summary of the story, it’s about a couple who really love each other. One night, they met an accident, and one of them loses her memory of the last five years of her life when she wakes up, including all memory of her husband.)
It made me think about my own life and what happened during the last five years. If I lose all memory of it, here are some of the things that will happen:
- I would think that I was still an auditor, not a blogger or a writer or anything of the sort.
- I would lose all memory of having migrated to Australia, of all the challenges I faced there and of all the people I met at that time, who made an impact in my life.
- I would lose all memory of the mistakes I’ve made along the way and of all the lessons learned that helped me to know myself better.
No, I wouldn’t want to lose any of that, even the painful memories. Everything is now part of who I am and who I’ve become. Sometimes, we don’t really realize how valuable something is until we lose it and regret losing it.
Here’s a “spoiler” though. In the movie, even if the girl forgot about the decisions she made during those five years she lost, she eventually made the same decisions when given the chance to start over.
It’s like she never really lost those five years in her life. She never really lost what she became. She’s always been who she was, and only time stood in her way to re-claim all that. What a comfort to know that even if we lose our most important memories, we could always find our way back if we could just find our way to who we really are.
Check Jocelyn's books:
"Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief", "Mend My Broken Heart", "Questions to God", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", and more - click here.
(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)
2 replies on “What If You Lose the Last Five Years of Your Life?”
What if I lose five years of life? I’m truly not sure, but that’d be the time when I was making my Ignatian retreat. Perhaps, I would’ve chosen to be honest 😉 and things would’ve gone better. But that would also mean less impact on the decisions I make and perhaps, not knowing how it is to be weak and needy of God’s mercy and love.
Hmmm… this would make for a good reflection this Sunday ~ I was actually making music for a poem entitled, Have No Regrets in Life… maybe this is a good way to tell God how grateful I am for all those years ~ nothing’s lost…
Hello, Melissa! Maybe it’s true that all things work out for the good of those who Love Him! Many times, we don’t know how, but one day, all will be revealed and we will fully appreciate how God has guided us all along. God bless! 😉