Lessons

The Way of life winds inexorably along and it is easy to forget where something started once it has ended, but the truth is that nothing really ends. It’s echoes just become fainter and less likely to be heard.

That is just as well I suppose, because endings can be so painful they need to fade in order to be seen more clearly. Until finally it has been long enough that the echoes become simple sweet memories of times gone by, of experiences and lessons that were stepping-stones to today.

I remember standing in my window watching for the headlights of your Jeep, those two bright lights too close together to be any other car. It was the way my morning started, looking for you when you went to work.

I remember sitting in your lap, swinging at the park and going down the slide, happy to just be near you. Those times when wearing your shirt meant being that much closer to you. Thinking I would never survive if we were separated.

And then you went off to war. I’d heard that word before. I read about it in books, or saw it in movies and I didn’t believe in war. I still don’t think war is the solution, but I believed in you and it was hard. The tears poured silently from my eyes no matter how bravely I smiled and waved good-bye.

I didn’t know if I would ever see you again, but we wrote. Back in those days we wrote with pens and paper and mailed them airmail to far off places. We wrote everyday, you and I. Remember that big box of letters? So much love in one big box. I used to stand outside and stare at the moon at night knowing that same moon shone down on you too and thinking that maybe my love would be soaked up and reflected down on you in the middle of that god forsaken place they took you.

I remember my joy when you returned and we were together again. And I remember the day I threw that box of letters away, a harbinger of what was coming, what neither one of us ever dreamed could happen, but it did.

People grow up. They change and grow apart and eventually the kindest and wisest thing for them to do is to turn around and walk their own paths, but that doesn’t negate what went before.

It was a big chunk of life and I’m not sorry it happened, nor sorry it is over. Many beautiful and good things came out it. Many hard lessons were learned during it. I am better and stronger and wiser and happier because of it now.

Living life one moment at a time is a miraculous way to keep things in perspective and sometimes that means listening for the old echoes that led me to these beautiful new ones.