Thinking About the Past

This is just my opinion. That’s all it is. One person’s thoughts, one perspective among billions. If I were wise, I’d write something safe, something agreeable. I’d craft a piece that echoes what you already believe, something that would make you nod along and think, Yes, this person gets it.

But here’s the thing—there’s already too much of that kind of writing out there. Too many words that say nothing, too many opinions that merely reflect the status quo. The echo chamber that many of us find comfortable.

I don’t want to add to the noise.

I used to frequent the Doctors Lounge at the hospital, that is before I retired to the solitude of my current life.   I have to admit that retirement was one of my better career decisions. 

I overheard a conversation in the Doctors Lounge. It was about abortion—a topic that’s been debated for decades. The same arguments were trotted out, the same complaints aired. The lay press doesn’t understand this issue. I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation. Nothing ever changes.

I stood there for a moment, listening, and then I walked away. It wasn’t that I disagreed or agreed with what was being said. It was the fatigue—the exhaustion of hearing the same circular debates, the same frustrations, over and over again. It felt like being stuck in a loop, repeating history without ever learning from it.

I wonder what was written about Oklahoma medicine at the turn of the previous century. What were people thinking about as the 20th century dawned? I imagine they were concerned about the influenza epidemic that was sweeping the globe. They were probably reminding their readers of the fragility of life, especially for the most vulnerable—the elderly and infants.

My mind wandered back to a graveyard I had stumbled upon in Grant County, east of Pond Creek, Oklahoma. It was during a summer job, plowing fields under the relentless Oklahoma sun. There,  in the middle of nowhere, tucked into an overgrown corner of a farm field, was this forgotten cemetery. About ten headstones stood there, weathered and worn, each marking the short life of an infant. All of them had died in January and February of 1900, before Oklahoma statehood.

It must have been a brutal winter. The oldest of those infants was only six months old. Their names were still legible, carved into the stone—tiny monuments to lives that barely began. I can’t imagine the grief of those parents, living in a time when so little could be done to save their children. Those headstones are all that remain of that winter, a silent testament to a world that has long since passed.

You know, that was a changing century also. If those infants had lived, they would have witnessed unimaginable transformations. The 20th century brought advances in medicine, technology, and society that would have seemed like science fiction in 1900. Immunizations, antibiotics, neonatal care—so much has changed. Today, losing ten infants in a single winter in northern Oklahoma would be unthinkable. There would be investigations, public health campaigns, and outrage.

But not in 1900. Back then, those children simply passed, their lives quietly noted on headstones that slowly crumble with time. They rest there, a reminder of how far we’ve come—and how much further we still have to go.

Progress is never guaranteed. It is not inevitable. It’s the result of choices—hard choices, fought for by people who refused to accept the world as it is.

Let’s not forget that… Let’s not get stuck in the same loops, repeating the same arguments without moving forward. Let’s honor the past—the lives lost, the struggles endured—by building a future that’s better than the world we inherited.