We choose what to remember, forget

It's time to turn the page and close the chapter. But before we do, we fall in line with the signals and sounds of the time. The carolers will be singing Jungle Bells...The revelers will be celebrating at the stroke of midnight and singing Auld Lang Sine.

Some of us will be making long lists of resolutions...The oppressed and the abused will reach out for a sign of hope and...The prosperous and successful beg for the status quo...The ill and suffering pray for relief...

And many of us as we mentally review the events of the year may simply wonder or ambivalently muse:

• How did the 365 days pass so quickly? Or on the flip side, it seems like a decade since last New Year's.

• This was one of the best years of my life. Or, I'm just glad it is over and hope '94 will be better.

• I'm going to face this year with a strong determination. Or, what's the use, resolutions are like pie crust and made to be broken.

Granted, we make our own choices and decisions. As Barbara Streisand sings about memories, what some of us like to remember is the laughter, and what is too painful we choose to forget. And that is our way of coping with the thorns and wounds that inevitably are felt through each passing year. And it is the laughter and the good times that sustain us through future disappointments and sadness.

But what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget shapes the next chapter in our lives. This year, for many of us, it is the children.

Laughing children, crying children... Clumsy children, agile children...Hungry children, emaciated children...Children of all races...Children needing a home...Children who see their parents killed by warring nations.

Gifted children, disabled children...Abused children, neglected children...Children around the world, children in our community, children on the television screen abducted and murdered...Children killing children.

But it is a new beginning. The calendars are fresh, the pages are clean. We are frightened of the violence. We deplore the crimes. We cry for peace. These children are our future.

Those who parent children, those who teach them, those who treat them and those who help and nurture by charitable giving of their money and time. We are all needed by the children so let's let 1994 renew or begin this commitment for each of us.

Copyright c 1993 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.