“The Road goes ever on and on, Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can…” -J.R.R Tolkein
The term “sentimental” is often hurled like a projectile, but I welcome it. The dictionary refers to a result derived from feeling rather than reason or thought, and that I do not deny, but feeling illuminates the path in a way that cold logic cannot.
This morning the house I grew up in is cold and empty and dark but for the glare of the computer screen. The family is scattered. My mother has passed on and my father has moved to a nearby retirement community. I can now mark with certainty the last day that the whole family was under the same roof, the last time the house was filled with the warmth and light of family.
If we live long enough we will experience many such “lasts.” It is a bitter irony of youth that we rush past the moments that we will one day try to hold on to, but will never again be able to reach. Last night a lonesome train whistle in the distance took me back to the time when, safe and warm under the covers, a child’s imagination could board that train and travel to undiscovered country. Many stops along that journey became real places later in life; became, in turn, new memories to cherish.
To live fully during our journey we must embrace each precious moment of this life as if it were our last, but to live joyfully we must release each moment to be able to grasp the next one. This is truth, but it is armchair truth. It is truth which is very difficult to embrace while we are in pain and it is truth almost impossible to communicate to youth.
Each generation has experienced the truth of this journey and attempted to warn its successor, yet it seems required of each generation that we ignore the lesson so that every individual can discover it in their own unique way. As a child, a train whistle stirred my imagination to travel to distant lands. Like so many before me, I could not wait to grow up, to leave home and to discover life for myself. Had I known that there is no return ticket on this journey, I might have lacked the courage to take it and my life would not have been as rich or as rewarding. Knowing this lesson can leave a bitter taste, but without bitterness in its proper measure, the other flavors available to the palette begin to fade.
