Echoes

Children race through their childhood. The sound of their laughter reverberating down the halls of learning, experiencing, and growing. The voices of adults ricochet through the same halls as they impart wisdom and guidance. Music dances weaving the soul. Happiness flows as every moment is taken for granted.

Now the echoes of memories bounce around the empty halls. The lessons that were passed on seem to be hypocritical in their message. The music paused and then skipped before eventually dying out. The abundant happiness was soaked up and discarded without thought that it may be endangered.

Years later the building that once housed the delight of children, the accomplishment of students, the fulfillment of relationship is now an empty carcass, holding nothing but the echoes. The echoes of once was. The hardest lessons came not amidst the laughter or the stories, but in the pain that each student experienced. Life became the lesson and those who once tutored became inadequate at offering the wisdom to survive the overwhelming tides that ebb and flow. Where life once existed now only memories whisper.

Minds strive to remember the happy memories. Our ears strain in hopes of recapturing the simplicity, the joy, the contentment. It'd be so much easier to go back to that place and freeze time than to return to the carcass and see what was eaten away by greed, selfishness, hate, and pain.

We can't exist with the echoes of the past. They'll fade. For some they've already faded. They're gone and forgotten. For others they are as fresh as the day they happened, like an instant replay that never pushes forward to the future. The echoes are amplified by some as they attempt to drag others back to exist in that time with them. Others have silenced the echoes beneath anger and pain.

The echoes for me are the hardest lessons that I've learned to date. Many days existed with tears and pain. I angered easily when I thought of all I'd lost and I saddened at the dreams that dissipated when my world ended. I overcame the echoes. I moved past them, taking with me the wisdom imparted by life. I captured happiness from its unfailing well. I've learned to make music of my own so that the notes never fade. I live a life that rose forth from the suffering. The pain left a scar that reminds me of all that I've seen and encourages me that I'll overcome the next lesson.

I'll never revisit those halls and recapture the feelings that existed when I walked them a carefree child. I'm no longer carefree. I was thrust into the world that shoveled cares on my shoulders. I walk those halls and choose to listen to the echoes of the memories that can make me smile. I'll never forget the lessons that I've learned but I choose the memories that don't resonate with pain.