being remembered

I was out for my run today, and my route took me through the university medical center. I took a slightly different turn through that area than I normally do, and saw something I had never seen before.








It is a concrete wall set with hand painted ceramic tiles that honor various women. Some are in remembrance of loved ones who have passed. Mothers. Sisters. Grandmothers. Aunts. Wives.














This one in particular caught my eye. I remembered Stephanie Hummer. I never met her, but during the spring of my junior year at Ohio State, she was raped and murdered. She was a freshman at OSU that year. The murder happened in 1994, but it wasn't until 2 years ago that a suspect was arrested. He later accepted a plea deal for 25-life. Had he gone to trial, it would have been on capital murder charges.

The interesting thing about this tile, is that it appears that this wall was created around 1999-2000, so this tile was up while her family and friends were still wondering what happened, and fearing that they would never know.





These next two also caught my eye, as they were clearly created by loving husbands. Seeing these two made me feel a little melancholy. I have never had anyone love me like this, and there are days when I believe I never will.








As I continued my run, I started thinking.

What will people say about me when I am gone?

I have no intention of dying before I'm 90, mind you, but it did make me think about my relationships with friends and family. Something I have realized about myself in recent months is that I'm friendly with a lot of people, but I tend to keep others at an emotional arms-length away. I do not allow a whole lot of people to get close to me.

I'm still puzzling out the reasons why. I think mostly it is a protective measure for 2 very different reasons. One is that I have had to deal with a lot of rejection in my life, particularly from people that I thought were friends. So on one level, keeping my relationships at a more superficial level keeps that inevitable rejection from hurting too much. I think this is partly where my trouble with romantic relationships lies.

The other reason is because I am acutely sensitive to others' emotions. If someone else is hurting, I hurt too. It goes beyond the normal empathy. It's almost like I'm an emotional sponge. So keeping people at a bit of a distance was a protective measure to allow me to function. I left the field of social work because I could not keep enough of that distance, and it was affecting my mental and physical health.

I would hope that people will say that I was fun, that I made a difference in their lives in some way, that I was a caring and understanding person. So, if that's what I hope people will say, I guess it is upon me to ensure that I live my life that way.