Quirky little thing
by Dave Davis on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 2:38pm
[A friend posted something on FB -- he said, simply, "I miss my Dad." The Dad in question having passed from this world 5 or so years ago. That triggered a train of thought. Said train follows. ]
I know what you mean. So, here's a funny thing-- tell me if anything like this has ever happened to you. I'm driving home, thinking about whatever goofball things I think about. And I smell cigars. (No one has ever smoked in my car, BTW) For many years, my Dad indulged in smoking these horrid green cigars; they are mostly the thing killed him, of course, but it took a while. Anyway -- I had an intimation of his presence. As if I were thinking about him (although I hadn't known that I was) and as if he were thinking about, or just hanging around with, me. It was quite pleasant and made me wistful. This happened about two years after he died; a month or so short of that-- it wasn't on any specific anniversary. Nothing like it had happened to that point, although it is the kind of thing that people report now and then-- usually closer to the person's death. Memory is a funny thing.
Now "I don't believe in ghosts," as the expression has it, or in spirits generally hanging around, for good or ill. That kind of thing is just not useful to think about, in my opinion. If the departed are praying for us, that's a positive enough thought for me; I don't expect updates from beyond or messages of any sort. On the other hand, I do find useful the notion, articulated by Douglas Hofstadter in his book I Am A Strange Loop, that the "souls" (essentially, consciousness and its expressions) of others close to us, these souls are to some degree 'imprinted' on us, and that in our role as survivors after the loss of a loved one, through our memories and that imprint , we can instantiate a form of their survival. Like a recording of the sounds in a song, imprinted on a vinyl record-- it is a valid impression of its source, although it is not the source itself.
I know what you mean. So, here's a funny thing-- tell me if anything like this has ever happened to you. I'm driving home, thinking about whatever goofball things I think about. And I smell cigars. (No one has ever smoked in my car, BTW) For many years, my Dad indulged in smoking these horrid green cigars; they are mostly the thing killed him, of course, but it took a while. Anyway -- I had an intimation of his presence. As if I were thinking about him (although I hadn't known that I was) and as if he were thinking about, or just hanging around with, me. It was quite pleasant and made me wistful. This happened about two years after he died; a month or so short of that-- it wasn't on any specific anniversary. Nothing like it had happened to that point, although it is the kind of thing that people report now and then-- usually closer to the person's death. Memory is a funny thing.
Now "I don't believe in ghosts," as the expression has it, or in spirits generally hanging around, for good or ill. That kind of thing is just not useful to think about, in my opinion. If the departed are praying for us, that's a positive enough thought for me; I don't expect updates from beyond or messages of any sort. On the other hand, I do find useful the notion, articulated by Douglas Hofstadter in his book I Am A Strange Loop, that the "souls" (essentially, consciousness and its expressions) of others close to us, these souls are to some degree 'imprinted' on us, and that in our role as survivors after the loss of a loved one, through our memories and that imprint , we can instantiate a form of their survival. Like a recording of the sounds in a song, imprinted on a vinyl record-- it is a valid impression of its source, although it is not the source itself.
Dave Davis In the book, Hofstadter explains how he got to that articulation in the context of the death of his wife, Carol. Sometimes he felt as if he were seeing their children grow "as if through her eyes." It is a comforting thought, whatever else it may be. http://tal.forum2.org/hofstadter_interview - Dave Davis “You would not find the boundaries of the soul no matter how many paths you traveled, so deep is its measure.” HeraclitusJanuary 25 at 2:53pm · ·
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When I was little I loved hanging out with my dad. I couldn't wait for him to get home from work so he could play with me because moms don't like running and playing ball and wrestling the way a boy can with his father.
ReplyDeleteIf dad was gone for most of the day, or if someone was sick where he worked and he had to pull double shifts several days throughout the week, I would sometimes go into the hall closet where his winter coat hung and bury my face in it because it had his smell...HIS smell, and no one else's, and it was like being with him.
After he died a year and a half ago, one of the things I took from his home was a flat-cap I had given him earlier in the year. It's more of a winter cap because its wool, so he didn't wear it much, and it's not very dirty. But he wore it just enough that it has his smell on it. I keep it hanging from a hook in my kitchen, and every once in a while I pick it up just to smell his smell and feel him near me again. I really miss my mom and dad. I dream of them often.
What a lovely thing that imprint is. So glad for your reply, Bill. I'll write some of my experiences tomorrow if I get the piece done. My mother died last January. I saw her so near one day a couple of months after she died. She had little expression but the feeling was one of absence of pain, I guess I would say. Her image was almost opaque. It was as though she had to leave. I honestly thought of the resurrected Jesus telling his followers not to touch him. That's what it felt like.
ReplyDeleteHer imprint is everywhere in my home. As is that of her parents. It's here in all the old things I brought home here. I've such a fondness for these things as they do to me that mystical thing you speak of. Thank you.