Memories of the past, especially sad memories, are a luxury, beloveds. Your bewildered heart turns back to the past, to another time, perhaps a time long forgotten, perhaps about a minor, very minor character in the play of your life, and then, out of the blue, you remember the remembered one now with such sadness, such yearning, such yearning to reconnect and perhaps say:

“You know, you did mean something to me. You played a part in my life. It may have been small, but, you know, it was mighty. See, I am thinking of you now. It is not that I need to make amends. It’s not that. It’s just that I so want to say hello to you and tell you that somehow you did mean something to me. You must have meant a lot because I am mourning you now. I wonder if you, a bit player in my life, I wonder if you ever thought of me. Honestly, I don’t know why thoughts of you popped up, and I really don’t know your significance in my life other than that we met for a short time and I had no idea that I would ever think about you again, and think of you with such longing.”

Do you see what I mean when I say remembering the little known past is a luxury, I suppose, an indulgence, and, yet, something within you presses you to go there.

You did not know this remembered person meant anything to you at all. I will tell you that everyone you meet has a significance, as if each person is a piano key you press, even a minor key. There were no big crescendos. Just a key pressed lightly and now, apparently, indelibly.

Of course you wish you had paid better attention then. You wish you had consciously swung everyone in your heart, but, alas, at the time, they were scenery perhaps, just something in the background. Now you would look into their eyes. Now you would complete whatever it was you were to complete. It is not even that you left it in the middle. It’s just that you didn’t quite tie it up. Or perhaps you did, and you wish you had tied the bow tighter.

Well, okay, have your luxury for a while. Mourn for your life hardly lived. Mourn for the past that is like a folded fan, only brought out once in a while, seemingly brought out by stealth. It’s okay that the past leads to your weeping now. It’s okay. And now you will make new memories, and they too will become precious. Why wait? Let them be precious now. Let the people in your life, big and little, be known as enterers of your heart. Everyone in the world is to have a place in your heart. Make room.

In one sense, everyone embedded in your heart is as important as another, even if you spent years with one person, and minutes with another. Every knock on the door of your heart is significant. There is no one in your heart by accident. No one stumbled in, even though it may seem that way. Everyone who has visited your heart had a mission there, perhaps to give, perhaps to take, perhaps for you and perhaps for him, yet what is for one is also for another.

Know this as well. You will meet again. You will say hello again, in thought or deed. In fact, your hearts have met again. Otherwise, your thoughts of this person would not have come again and lingered with you as they have today. Bless all from the past, and all from today, and know that all that ever takes place takes place today.