Will you remember me when I am gone?
That’s a tough question to ask someone. I mean what are the odds of a person giving you an honest answer to such euphemism? Either you’ll end up getting repartees that you would only consider it wise to dismiss them or you would inadvertently end up confronting the other extreme of responses which go on to dig into what is otherwise considered atypical of a person with no psychological imbalances. I believe life can be measured by the number of people who made a difference to your life. For the world you might be a single person, but if you could, in your entire lifetime, find even a single person to whom you mean the world then you can safely assume that you have led a life of meaning. It’s said people may forget you, but they will never forget how you made them feel. And if this adage carries any ounce of wisdom in it, it wouldn’t be difficult to conclude that the only people you would remember are the ones who made you feel special at least once, even if later, by fate or by choice, they digressed from being themselves.
“When X-mas bells are ringing
Over the fields of snow
I hear sweet voicing singing
From the lands of long ago
And etched on vacant spaces
Are half-forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish
And love we used to know…”
It’s tough for anyone to deny the significance that these simple lines find in our lives. As kids we have strong opinions, good, bad and ugly of things around us. We dread the unknown. We fear the dark. As we grow up this fear doesn’t die somehow, instead it grips us even more and extends beyond simple things. It extends to people whom we encounter in our walk of life. The idiosyncrasies of the human nature simmer under the actions of these men and women who by birth are not just considered the most rational example of any life form witnessed on the face of the earth but are also grossly over rated in terms of being able to make a conscious decision based on pure emotional logic. That’s the stuff that makes little sense, if at all, in books on cognitive science. There are models and theories and people that put their heart and soul and blood and brain into explaining the rationale that underlies the quintessential human absurdity in most of life’s situations.
Not wanting to digress beyond this point, let me reiterate the same question. “Will you remember me when I am gone?” I am not a father figure such that a mere mention of my name should arouse in the minds of people the sort of reverence that’s apt for these more noble souls. I am an ordinary person with all the flaws and incoherencies of an average individual susceptible to be driven largely by emotions and rarely by cognizance. And I realize so is every person around me. If some people like me, they just do. If they don’t, nothing that I say or do is going to change their opinion about me. The human mind is like porcelain. Once molded it stays. So you have just once chance to impress the people around you. The irony is that this opportunity always goes unseen. Have you ever noticed those folders with tiny little tags sticking out that allow you to conveniently organize your sheets and avoid the mess? The human mind is engineered to function that way. It labels people without second thoughts and what are born are preconceived notions about individuals that live and die with them.
Should you beg others for a chance to explain to them what you are and bridge the divide between you and their opinion about you? I strongly believe you shouldn’t. If they didn’t understand you the first time, there is a very high probability that attempting to do it by giving them a second chance will only make matters worse. They just lack the capacity and the astuteness to deal with certain kind of people, you being one of them. Accept it. Life is too short to be spent on correcting such maladies.
So while you keep musing over the possibility of someone being able to know you enough to remember you even when you are gone, it might happen that you would miss out on that little kid waving at you from the glass door of a school bus. A sight that could take you back to you kindergarten days and remind you of your favorite teacher who taught you the cooler way of learning the alphabet…someone who must have long gone, but for all that she was to you, you would miss that anonymous faceless enigma that has lived and grown with you in a way you will never forget. Strange as it may sound, you'll never know who was watching you while you were busy worrying about the other things… and secretly fell in love with you for the most inexplicable reasons…just to remember you…even when you are gone.
“One sweet thought my soul shall cherish
Till this fleeting life has flown
This sweet thought will cheer when I dying
Someone will miss me when I am gone…”