Traverse City Record-Eagle

Loraine Anderson

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October 18, 2010

Loraine Anderson: Living now

By LORAINE ANDERSON Local columnist

One of my favorite sayings is, "All time is now."

It's neat and clean. It allows me to live fully in the "now," even when I'm doing historical research or trying to envision the world after the electronic-media revolution settles down.

It helps me keep things simple. I never have to consider whether I'm living in the past, present or future. Each of us is the sum of all our verb tenses, including those "coulda," "shoulda," "woulda" conditional forms. We simply are here now, and so is everything that has passed before. Our thoughts, beliefs, action, inaction and a lot of uncontrollable, unforeseen events will determine the future.

My five-year interest in genealogy and six decades of life teach me that. The past and present are not perfect. The future is conditional. The present is where we are born, live and die. It is where we plant our feet on the ground. It is where uncontrollable life-changing events occur.

Until eight years ago, October's major significance for me was that my father was born on this date in 1920. If alive today, he would be 90, like many other World War II vets. He died a young man, though, on April 22, 1956.

My mother died Oct. 12, 2002. Since then, the time between the anniversary dates of her death and his birth appear to have become a week of reflection for me. I don't actively seek out the memories. Thoughts just come and go. I try to pay attention and feel what I feel without judgment. I watch my understanding of George and Hildegard grow to new levels.

This year, my father became a man of his time instead of a 7-year-old's golden-hued character who took me fishing and wormed my hook, who told me stories on the front porch of my childhood, who let me stand on his shoes so we could dance around the dining-room table.

He has dimension now. The transformation is a gift of working on the Record-Eagle's "Tribute to Our Troops" book, a community photo album, that comes out next month. I talked to many World War II veterans or their families to gather information for the photo captions. I learned more about that era and how much the world changed during their lives and mine.

The vets all seemed so young in their military photos. I looked into their black-and-white eyes and saw the world of the 1920s and 1930s that my father and mother grew up in.

I feel a deep gratitude to my parents and their generation who inherited a world run amok.

I understand more deeply the importance of upcoming All Souls Day, the Day of the Dead, Ghost Dinners and other remembrances that honor ancestors and connect past, present and future through their life stories. These days of celebration definitely are for the living, too.

Loraine Anderson can be reached at landerson@record-eagle.com.

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