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Rated: E · Short Story · Children's · #481465
A father reminds his daughter to fight to remember the good things about her brother.
To My Daughter

You are upset because your brother said mean things to you today and it hurt.

Where should I begin? Maybe by explaining there is lots of misunderstanding between boys and girls, even between mommies and daddies. But most of the misunderstanding isn't from this lifetime, but from times long past and practically forgotten. I say practically forgotten because they are not all the way forgotten. A little bit of the past is remembered ever so faintly, like a dream you can't quite remember. It's there, but you can't quite bring it to the conscious mind. All you have is a little trace of a feeling.

A wise man once said that people drink a cup of forgetfulness each lifetime. That cup of forgetfulness works quite well for all but the strongest feelings. Those strong feelings we remember, and that is about all we remember. We don't even remember what caused us to have the strong feelings or whether our minds were clear about the circumstances. Sometimes I think we would be better off if we would remember everything, not just the strong feelings. Because in our forgetfulness we do not remember the good things, the moments when good things happened and things went right. We only remember the desperate things and many of those desperate things are also confusing things. As we remember those feelings parts of us that stayed in that time come forward and, if you are not wise, you will start acting like you did back then. In other words, you start acting like you used to in other lifetimes.

Do you know what I would wish for my little girl? That this would be the lifetime to solve problems, rather than extending the problems of the past.

Sometime I might tell you of some of the good things that happened in the past.

A brother or a sister will remember something he/she wanted to say in the past - something he/she wanted to say to hurt you. And he/she will say it and you will remember how you hated then. That's all you can remember: how you hated. Children should be freed from the cup of forgetfulness, so they can remember the good things.

Do you remember when Daddy and Mommy really loved each other? Do you remember when they were not driven by problems? Do you remember the good things your brother did for you many, many times in the past? We need to remember those times. We can't just live on bad, confusing memories.

I want you tonight to think of the happy times. I want you to remember happy times when your brother said some good things to you instead of the things he said today. Think on the good things at least as much as the bad, so you can have some handles to deal with the bad things.

Think of the times, methods, how's and whys to lift your brother out of what he has been caught in in the past, so you can have friendship instead of letting old enemyships grow.

Goodnight, sweetheart.
© Copyright 2002 Ron Henry (wisdomstruggle at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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