Without any doubt or debate, two of the greatest memories that are etched in stone in my mind are memories of my late sister, Cynthia Joan Goings.
Both of these memories, that I often recall, are polar opposites of one another. The first memory of her takes me back to my early childhood, when I was about to turn six years old, in 1957.
In the Goings’ clan at the time, there were seven boys and one girl (named Vivian), who had died before I was born.
She was my parents’ little darling who had passed due to having pneumonia at the age of three. Her dying had left a pain in the hearts of my parents, as well as an emptiness and missing link in the sibling chain.
There had been five births after her passing and all of them were boys.
My parents, as well as my brothers and I, now longed for a little girl.
We, who were snakes and snails and puppy dog tails, wanted a cuddly little sister who would be sugar and spice and everything nice. So when the news came from my father on the evening of November 24, 1957 that the new arrival to our family was a girl, there was great joy and celebration that the one we had longed and hoped for had finally been born.
We had finally been given our own little sister who would immediately steal our hearts and hold them captive for forty-seven long years.
On the flip side of this narrative about the recalling of my precious sister is the day of her dying.
The date was May 7, 2004 and I was in Zimbabwe, Africa. I had gone there to conduct a series of crusades and conferences.
Late that night, I received a very disturbing phone call from home that my sister was in the hospital on the critical list and the prognosis did not sound good.
About an hour after the first call, my wife called me with the worst news that I had ever received in my life.
To me, she said in a very sad and somber voice, “Mike, we just lost Cymp” (my sister’s nickname, which was short for Cynthia).
There I was half-way around the world and the one whose birth had brought such pleasure and delight had slipped into eternity without me being there to say good-bye and to hold her in my arms while she was alive for the last time. Truly her passing had given me the greatest pain of my life, as her birth had rendered to me one of my greatest pleasures and reasons for celebration.
I took the liberty to share this true story with you about the birthing and passing of my sister and the pleasure that one brought, as well as the pain and grief produced by the other.
There are times that I revisit these memories that are etched in stone in my mind experiencing both the pleasure and pain in the process.
Being a mere human, I am unable to eradicate either the pleasure of her birth, nor the pain of her passing.
Certainly, if I could, I would erase the bad memory and keep the good one.
Nevertheless, I have come to accept the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes with having been gifted with a good memory. All of us, without any exceptions, are blessed and cursed with both bad and good memories.
There are memories when we recall them that take us way back to our childhood, to a simpler time in our lives when the living was easy and we experienced the adventures and excitement of growing up.
What about the memory of your first prom? How can any bride, groom, or parents of both brides and grooms forget the joy of experiencing the wedding of their child?
High school and college graduations are some of the most joyous and treasured memories of our lives that we often revisit. Then the birth of our children produced a sense of pleasure and delight that has to rank at the very top of these good memories.
Contrarily, there are events and experiences of yesterday that even to this day, stimulate grief, sadness, and regret when we venture down memory lane.
Memories of the dying of cherished loved ones, failed marriages, or friendships, as well as other painful experiences will continue to haunt us perhaps for the rest of our lives. Love it or hate it, our memories are dichotomies of both painful and pleasurable events and experiences awaiting to be revisited through the ability of recall.
We are all destined to live with both the pleasure and pain of recall.
Then when we die, both good and bad memories will be etched in the minds of those we leave behind.