What We Cannot Forge

(Melanie and Faye, The Great Escape, 2008)

Lies tell the truth about someone. An escape artist is not running but hiding. And the writer does not create a world but relives his or hers through different eyes.
Our past will soon forget us; that the memories we cherish should be remembered, keeping mementos, or writing, and other forms of documentation for the good times should never be forgotten. For harder times, there may only be hope in our past for our future. That all is not lost, and we have a mountain half-climbed to see the top and admire the view of the world until we decide to find what we had left behind. To see the world in different eyes; eyes that have seen the world once over, and now sees something familiar but with new context. Give a reason for smiling, give a chance to new and renew. Let tired legs feel their strength exceed their expectation as you move across the countryside, faster, each step marking your existence, as you slowly fade to nothing. And what have you, what have you left for your memory to others? What can be said once all is gone, that you lived? Perhaps, that you were here? And maybe, that never mattered because you lived in your eyes, and have seen a world twice, for those who have known you carry you now on their shoulders as they climb, or climbed that mountain to see the world, and are carrying you down with them as others will do for them once they are gone, but never completely forgotten.