Ramblings of a Retired Mind

  Ramblings of a Retired Mind Esther A Move and a Memory Seven years ago, my wife and I left Chicago—the only home we had ever known—and moved to Polson, Montana. Retirement and the pull to be near our daughter and four grandchildren brought us West. Leaving behind friends, family, and the familiar rhythm of city life was no small undertaking. Before the move, I found myself at my parents’ graves, saying a quiet goodbye. I knew they weren’t truly there, but I felt the need to honor their lives and the life I was leaving behind. Graves matter. They are touchstones of existence, proof that a life once was. Too many leave this world without such a marker. The Pull of Genealogy Decades ago, my wife and I became absorbed in genealogy. With much of the older generation already gone, we pieced together names, dates, photographs, and fragments of stories. We visited cemeteries, photographing gravestones as if gathering the last whispers of lives once lived. But some left no trace at...

  The Price to Pay for Free Speech Free speech has never been free. Throughout history, those who dared to voice unpopular, offensive, or unconventional opinions often paid a steep price—sometimes with their careers, sometimes with their lives. We like to think today’s climate is uniquely divided, but the silencing of dissent is hardly new. Voices Silenced in History Socrates was condemned in Athens for “corrupting the youth” and questioning authority. His sentence? Death by hemlock. Centuries later, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for believing in an infinite universe. The Enlightenment didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for free thinkers either. Thomas Paine, hero of Common Sense , was cast aside after criticizing organized religion in The Age of Reason . Voltaire spent years exiled or imprisoned for his sharp attacks on church and monarchy. The Artists and Rebels In the nineteenth century, Oscar Wilde’s wit and openness about homosexuality clashed with Victoria...

  Ramblings of a Retired Mind Love, a Lifelong Journey Love—that elusive emotion every human longs for. For most of us, it begins with the love of a parent. Yet not all parents set the stage for a child’s future search for love. Love wears many forms, but perhaps the purest is the unconditional devotion of a mother to her newborn child. It’s a force of nature—indescribable and undeniable. A Mother’s Love I never doubted my mother’s love. From the moment I arrived in her arms, she embraced me with a gift I would spend my whole life trying to return. Only when I became a parent myself did I truly understand: a mother’s love asks for nothing in return—it simply is . Childhood Lessons As children, we cling to family love, the only love we know. But once we step into the larger world, we begin an endless quest to fill the void left by that primal bond. We seek friends, connections, even attention, all in search of belonging. In grade school, I had a few close buddies. We played,...

  Ramblings of a Retired Mind Will I Wake Up? Ever since I turned sixty-eight, I’ve gone to bed each night wondering: Will I wake up tomorrow—or not? You see, sixty-eight is something of a cursed number in my family. My grandfather died at sixty-eight. So did his son. And so did my mother, his daughter. Naturally, I couldn’t help but obsess over it during my own sixty-eighth year. Every night, the thought gnawed at me. Every morning, waking up felt like a small victory. When I turned sixty-nine, I was overjoyed—almost like when I finally reached sixteen and could drive. I could breathe again. The Thoughts That Creep In at Night My nightly ritual goes like this: lights out, head on the pillow, and then… the thoughts start. What if this is it? What if tomorrow, there is no more me? We humans are masters at feeling immortal—at least when we’re young and healthy. Think of an eight-year-old kid flying down a ski slope, fearless, not a thought about death. At that age, immortal...