Recently I read, with great delight, a book about Louis XIV of France, the great Sun King. In the book, the author uses the phrase "in living memory" to speak of the way in which the eldest individuals in a generation will be able to reach back into their childhood memories to recall those events and people that will seem dim, far distant, exotic and mysterious to those who are much younger.

While I was reading this book, a friend of mine died. He had suffered all his life with a congenital heart condition that would have debilitated most people and set them off on a life confined primarily to bed. With his tremendous will and great love of learning he had gone on to become a chiropractor, a psychologist and health educator. He was waiting, at the time of his death, for a new heart.

As I thought of him, I recalled his joy in his life, his laughter and his love of family and friends. His appreciation of having been given one more day seemed to shine from him, like a new coin held in the light. Ah, I thought, this is what living memory really is: it is the life that those we love give us in our memories of them. In the same way that a generator is the source of energy for electricity, living memory serves as a generator of emotional and spiritual energy in our own lives long after those we love have gone.

Living memory is a never ending source of renewal and regeneration. We have only to take the time to go back and live with them a bit in our memories to bring the grace and beauty of their gifts along with us moment by moment as we create our lives with them in mind.

- Taun Relihan, RN, MS, MA, PhD.

Deborah Brown-Penrose Photography