Old Photograph

There is a song that I've been getting into recently written by Eric Bogle called "No Man's Land (Green Fields of France)." The story behind it is that a passerby at a World War I graveyard takes some time to rest next to the grave of a young soldier named Willie McBride. The passerby then wonders about Willie and how he died in combat and how he is remembered.

One of the more personal poignant stanzas of the song is the second verse. It is as follows:

"And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?"

I've always been touched by this part for some reason. It makes me wonder what sort of impact I have on people and how will I be remembered. Will there be people who actually remember who I am? Or am I some passing stranger that can easily be forgotten?

That thought is quite troubling at times, when you realize that you can be a non-entity to someone just as quickly as you can become something to someone. All sort of interpersonal relationships are nothing but air and thoughts. There's no tangibility or anything physically connecting you to anyone else. One day, something may change and it'll all be gone and nothing will have changed except in your mind, where the connection lived the entire time.

It's this that admittedly makes me tread the line as carefully as best I can in what I say or do, despite my best efforts to sabotage myself. But you can only do so much. Beyond that, it's up to the other people involved to dictate whether the bonds will hold and whether you'll be a memory or a photograph.