I have thought a lot lately about
roads. Where do they take us and what is behind us on the roads of
life?
Every Sunday when I drive to St.
Patrick Church in downtown Memphis, the expressway passes right over
the ground where my first home stood and over the land up the road
that held the family business, my Grandmother's house and so much of
my history.
It is so strange to be flying past the
landscape that surrounded my earliest memories when all those actual
places that I inhabited are completely gone. Yet my mind doesn't
recognize this fact. Sometimes I even think I see a tree or a turn
of the land just off the road that seems familiar. I seem to be
living in two time diminishions. At times they collide as if I am
inhabiting the Twilight Zone.
This road that plows through my
earliest childhood and beyond is not the only road that is haunted
for me. There are others. Many others.
When I cruise the city streets going
about my daily business, often I come face to face with moments of my
past. There, just at the corner of North McLean and Madison Ave,
where I let my oldest daughter out in the morning for high school and
again when I watch the children pour out of a school bus anywhere.
My children are no longer here. They are not even children any
longer to anyone but me. It is just the turn of a head or the toss
of a beautiful head of hair that draws me back to those mornings. I
keep seeing her walk away. How I wish it were today.
As a Mother I drove my children
everywhere (while at times, they drove me nuts!). There were school
events, social events and scout meetings. At one time I considered
myself a “Lady in Waiting” because it seemed I was always sitting
in my car waiting for something to be over. Now, I have all the time
in the world and wish fervently I could have one of those moments
back. What a joy it would be to hear them argue and squawk about
whatever the moment held, if I could only hold my young ones in my
arms again. Perhaps that is why all the roads take me back. I was
so busy watching the road ahead that I missed the scenery I was in.
I missed so many special moments.
Later, after the children were mostly
grown and I was so very alone, I drove through the darkness of
Mississippi on the back roads looking for comfort, looking for hope,
looking for the tomorrow I had lost. Oh, those nights! They were
truly, darkness for my mind and for my soul. I have only the
goodness of God that prevented my demise in those hours between
darkness and dawn when I ran from the loneliness and sorrow.
In my heart, I know it is good to
visit both the places and the thoughts of the past, but it is
important, perhaps most important of all, not to allow the past to
fog up the road ahead. If you can, hug the people in your life
today, while at the same time remembering and reverencing the past,
it is good, really, truly good. After all, these roads have led us
to today, which holds all the promise of tomorrow and a future filled
with hope.
