24 Elul 5783/September 10, 2023

We Carry the Ghosts of Our Past

by Cantor Joanna M. Alexander

We carry the ghosts of our past.

Whether trauma or love, our new beginnings are tainted.

For, we carry the ghosts of our past.

Whether employment, relationship, or adventure

our expectations are set

by the stories, the actions, the memories;

all remnants of our past.

How might we overcome?

How might we clean the slate?

There is a power in forgetting,

There is a healing in that state.

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.

Those who live in history are living in their trauma.

Forgetting grants forgiveness from the victim and the harmed.

But for those who came out on top, remembering must ensue.

We carry the ghosts of the past: those who helped us rise, and those who held us down.

We carry the ghosts of the past: our past loves, our past colleagues, our past friends, our past selves.

The ghosts, they walk beside us, keep us company, guide our way.

Some ghosts can grant us comfort, some haunt us to our end.

How can we carry on?

How can we move along?

How can we find a new beginning with all we are carrying along?