Snapshot Moments

There are things I wish I had paid more attention to over the years. There are happy moments that I didn't know wouldn't happen again or wouldn't happen again for a long time. Moments of love or comfort, moments of pride or excitement. Experiences I regret taking for granted. It's one reason I write.

I try to pay closer attention. When I have an experience that touches me in some way I try to notice details about it and burn it in my mind. The first chance I get I put it on paper. I've come to call these snapshot moments. Those moments that, if I could, I would capture somehow so I could go back and experience them over and over whenever I want. 

Up: Love Story

Gets me every time!  Every *#(@ time! 

"I am about to let you see something I have never shown to another human being. Ever! In my life!"

And so begins one of the sweetest love stories ever.  

  

"Up" has many lessons, one is that life itself is an adventure.  Like Ellie, as children we all have heads full of dreams of places we will go and things we will do.  If we are lucky, we find someone like Carl who wants to help us make those dreams happen and wants to go on those adventures with us.  

In this film life gets in the way of Carl and Ellie making these dreams come true, and Carl feels immense guilt.  His heart breaks at his perceived failure to give his beloved Ellie the life she dreamed of.  He discovers, however that she didn't feel this way at all.  She had adventures with him, just not the ones she dreamed of as a child.

Why do we read? Why are some of us obsessed with reading? What is the reading experience about? I will explore these questions in coming weeks.  I would love to hear any thoughts you have on the subject.

There are many things can be accomplished in a unique manner through reading.   Among those things is the ability of reading to help us work through grief.

In her article, "Reading Through", on huffingtonpost.com following the Sandy Hook tragedy Bethanne Patrick recommends reading for precisely this purpose. Reading has a unique ability to allow “us to enter into to the consciousness of other people”, she says. 

We more fully understand the reality of all sides of such senseless acts through reading books that get us inside the minds of other parents that have lost children to similar tragedies or books that get us inside the minds of survivors of such events, the families of people who commit such crimes, or families of the victims. 

Reading can be very healing for many reasons.  One of those is the understanding and insights we gain.  I believe though, that the core reason that reading is healing is that it allows us to share a very human experience.  We share our pain and no longer feel alone.  Moments spent in the minds and hearts of those closer to the tragedy are moments of shared grief and we find comfort there.