The Road Well-Traveled, Part IV

 We all walk the same road—it is the road of life.   I call it “The Road Well-Traveled” because everybody is traveling  it!  Everybody began the trek down this road when they first entered this life and the road ends when life ends.  Every person “grows up” walking this road.  Everyone grows old walking this road.  We all walk it together—this road of life.  The road takes us through valleys and shadows, into bright sunshine and joy, through deep waters, scorched plains and bountiful plains, and up mountains that seem impossible to scale.  The road takes us through all of this and more.

A common comfort given those on this road and facing its various obstacles is, “You are not alone.”  This is true.  We are not alone, even when we feel that we are.  Why?  Because everybody is walking this same road with us.  Everybody goes the same way we go.  Every person experiences the same valleys, shadows, sunshine and joy.  Every person passes through the deep waters; every person knows the scorched plain, the bountiful plain, and the unscalable mountain.  That is where the road goes and since everybody is walking this same road we cannot ever say we are alone in our pilgrimage.  Our brothers and sisters, wherever they live in this whole wide world, whatever the color of their skin, their gender, their religious convictions, their political bent, walk with us and we with them.  There is no way any of us can claim that we are alone on this road trip.

Almost six weeks ago my wife’s journey on this road well-traveled came to an end.  I like to think that she is now traveling a new and different road, perhaps a smoother and less stressful one.  I have often referred to our leaving the road well-traveled as a graduation from one worn-out road to a new one—similar to graduating from elementary school and moving on to high school.  

I am not alone in my grief on the road well-traveled.  Many of my brothers and sisters know, or have known, this same grief.  One week and a day after losing my beloved Cher, I received a call from my older brother.  His wife had died that morning.  “Grief compounded,” my daughter-in-law said.  Think of the road you are on and those traveling it with you. Think of all those who have suffered the loss of a loved one.  Think of the “grief compounded” during the past year of the Covid pandemic—not only here in the US, but around the globe.  Brothers and sisters everywhere are walking this road with you and me. 

Remembering James Langston Hughes

 James Langston Hughes was the American Poet Laureate of Harlem.  He was born February 1, 1902 and died May 22, 1967.  

“I knew only the people I had grown up with…,” he once wrote.  Isn’t that true of all of us?  We only the know the people we grew up with, and who were they?   Did you grow up in a rural, urban, suburban area where only certain kinds of people surrounded you?  I did.  Hughes finished his sentence…”I knew only the people I had grown up with, and they weren’t people whose shoes were always shined, who had been to Harvard, or who had heard of Bach.”

My favorite Hughes poem is “Harlem.”  It goes like this:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

Like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

He wrote another poem that seems appropriate for today.  “I Dream a World” speaks to our time.

I dream a world where man

No other man will scorn,

Where love will bless the earth

And peace its paths adorn

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet freedom’s way,

Where greed no longer saps the soul

Nor avarice blights our day.

A world I dream where black or white, 

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free,

Where wretchedness will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl,

Attends the needs of all mankind-

Of such I dream, my world!

If we cannot bring into being this kind of world, if the dream is deferred (as it has always been deferred) our world will dry up like a raisin in the sun…or it will fester like a sore…and stink like rotten meat…or explode!  

A Grief Observed

 C.S. Lewis wrote a collection of reflections on the experience of bereavement following the death of his wife in 1960.  These reflections were put in a book, “A Grief Observed,” which was published in 1961.  

Here are some of my rambling reflections at this moment.  

I have found comfort in my own experience of bereavement from the many who have called, sent cards, notes, and letters expressing their love for Cher and their concern for me.  Thank you so much.

I’ve also found comfort in the words of others.  Frederick Buechner’s  words in The Sacred Journey have been a tremendous help:  

“Whenever and however else they may have come to life (since they left us), it

is beyond doubt that they live still in us.  Death can never put an end to our 

relationship with them.  Memory is more than looking back to a time that is no

longer; it is a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything

that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that

still is.”

The famous sermon by Arthur John Gossip, “When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” which I’ve read and commented on so many times through the years speaks to me now as it never spoke before. 

The hymns of the Christian faith have been helpful, too.  Cher asked that the hymn, “Abide With Me,” be played at her Celebration of Life service.  The words come alive for me in a new way as I listen to Susan Boyle sing them. You can find her rendition on YouTube.  The last nine words keep ringing in my head:  “In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.”

Wherever we traveled around this wonderful world, Cher would always do a little dance for the camera.  She danced in New Orleans, in Spain, Italy, Greece, and at the ancient pyramids of Egypt—almost everywhere we visited.  The photo shows her dancing in St. Petersburg, Russia in 2009.   I am comforted by the words of the hymn, “Lord of the Dance:” and its refrain:  “Dance, then, wherever you may be (France, Austria, England—wherever); I am the Lord of the Dance, said He.  And I’ll lead you all wherever you may be (in joy, in sorrow—wherever, whatever), and I’ll lead you all in the dance, said He.”  Which calls to mind another hymn that I trust speaks true: “Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land…I am weak, but thou art mighty; hold me with thy powerful hand.”