Prior to Kalei’s death, I did not give much thought to the nuances of living a future based existence. Like most people, I assumed that my lifetime ahead events and the time triggers associated with them, were attainable imaginings, but in no way were they fixed into place if I did not want them to be or if I changed my mind. After she died, I came to appreciate how wrong I was about that last part.
You see, when something is important to us, whether it is a dream, expectation, for ourselves or others, we write it down on what I call our future blackboard. Once there, that image remains on our board until it is realized, or it’s time comes and goes. I explain the finer parts of this concept in Chapter 24 of FKM, but a high level explanation goes something like this…
Throughout our lives we are continually imagining our future. As time goes on we start adding more shape, color and details to the picture. We can tweak the event to accommodate reality, but the representation of the original board input cannot be changed. An example would be your child’s high school graduation. You write down the event; that is solid and fixed. The date, perhaps not quite as firmly carved onto your board, but a reasonable timeframe is still written down. Everything else, the name of the school, who will be there etc. gets added as the timeframe for that experience gets closer to real time.
A lot of what is written on our boards are standard societal based events based influenced by the region we live in, our culture, and religion and so on. Some are simply unique to us as individuals. We dream or imagine every major event or the circumstances we want to build our lives around long before we get anywhere close to making them happen. As we move into adulthood and the practicalities of who we are and what we can actually accomplish starts to solidify, we add to the structure of each image. If we come to the conclusion that a particular dream is destined to remain unfulfilled, the item stays in place until time allows for its removal.
After Kalei’s death, none of the hundreds of images I had for her and our lives together disappeared, not one. I would have to wait and grieve as one after another, their time came and went. After fourteen years a lot of my Kalei dreams have come off my future blackboard. Others, like her wedding or holding my first grandchild in my arms, still sit there. I try not to look at them but don’t beat myself up about it when I do. I find it better to acknowledge them head on, their eventual loss and the resulting empty memory than have them sneak up on me on a day I am emotionally weak. For the grieving, many days you might not recognize as important, the future can sometimes be just as brutal as the past. You want to have your eyes wide open when those arrive.
It took me a long time to gain the courage to write something new on my future blackboard. I think guilt more than anything else held me back. How could I dream about a future when my child could not? Well, short of a lobotomy or ending my life, I can’t stop imaging tomorrow or the next day or the next day after that, any more than I can stop time or change what was. Eventually I had to write something down.
That I am trying is good, that I am more cautious about what I place on my board now is understandable. I am leery of the pain that comes with adding more dreams that might have to end up on my empty memory pile.
My friends and family understand my reticence in this area which is why they were so supportive of me writing publish Forever Kalei’s Mom on my future blackboard. While I think they thought it was a pie in the sky dream, as long as I had something on my future blackboard that actually had a chance of becoming real, they were content in the knowledge that I still had something to live for.
I am glad no one pushed me (well maybe they did a little bit) to write on my board after Kalei died. When I was ready, and more importantly, capable of being ready, I picked up that piece of chalk all on my own.
