When we are watching our graduates walk across the stage and into a new world.
When we are realizing that Empty Nest Syndrome is real.
When we are laying loved ones to rest.
Where are we going from here?
Trodding on and welcoming the new. Always has been my way. Embracing new life challenges and facing whatever is there when I round a new corner.
I've been fairly good at this.
I've lost those I love.
Lost them to life. Lost them to death.
Lost them to lusts. Lost them to loves.
Loved til it hurt and hurt those I loved.
I've changed life's path in the blink of an eye and seen this world through rose colored glasses.
I've had those glasses smashed before my eyes and found my path to be wrought with pebbles, stones and large boulders.
My dog, Buddy, is old now. Almost 14 years old. He is blind, he is deaf, his bladder fails him and cries like he is being stuck with a knife if he comes uncovered in his plush bed.
I love this dog. I will crawl out of bed at 3:00 a.m., feel the slap of cold hardwood on the bottoms of my barefeet and go to the kitchen to pull his cover over his balding doggy ears. I whisper I love him and give him a pat before I turn out the light and trace the light on the wooden desk with my fingers, count the steps back up to the landing and fold myself into my waiting bed.
I hope that this is where we go from here.
We go somewhere where a loving voice greets us and soothes us. Where, no matter our physical ailments, we feel safely wrapped in a warm hug.
Angels, bugles, harps, clouds. I am not so clear about those. I am very clear that there will be a new path. That I will don my rose colored glasses, walk painlessly on pebbled paths, and embrace what waits there.
See you there, someday. Wherever there may be.
