Life Atlas

I don't like giving directions to a place I've never been. I am wary of leading others astray. If the directions are not familiar to me from personal experience, I've been know to jump in the car and make a trial run following the directions I've been given before passing them on to someone else. Right before sending out invitations to our wedding reception I, shall we say, "encouraged" Frank to take us on a dry run to the remote destination. And, in much the same vein, I "encouraged" Frank to drive with me all the way from Huntsville, Alabama to Taft, Tennessee to the site of a celebration brunch, decisively following our own directions as we'd composed them before sharing them with our friends.

Seems I can't be sure of a journey, and certainly can't direct others on the same journey, unless I have traveled it myself.

And that has been a point of enlightenment for me. I often find myself discarding advice or opinions - and certainly being wary of giving advice or opinions - on subjects I know have not been personally experienced. And many of us generously serve opinion and advice like they're dollops of mashed potatoes. Who among us has not heard someone give a thorough synopsis, and resulting opinion, of a movie they've not seen or a book they've not read.

Nothing beats knowing personally what words like "6 - 18 months" feel like. Or, "the mass is 6 centimeters." Or, knowing how chemo feels, and how the process of loosing one's hair actually happens. Nothing can ever prepare a person for loosing a coveted job or position like actually loosing a coveted job or position. All the theories on how to manage Alzheimer's or Parkinson's pale in comparison of having traveled along with someone down that path. The guilt of divorce, the starkness of widowhood, the need to take the reigns, nothing can compare to experiencing those pivotal moments.

Being a subject of bullying develops an understanding of how words wound in a way that no onlooker can ever fully understand. Calling Huntsville's street people friends breeds kindredship as human beings unlike any study of demographics can. Having a common goal with someone very different opens the mind and the heart like no amount of reading about ways to do it can ever accomplish. Entering into the homes and life conditions of others outside our own awakens understanding that cannot be known from street view.

In experiencing the heartwarming joys, the unbearable pains and griefs, the paralyzing uncertainties, the awesome moments which reveal the sacredness of life, we're all building a Life Atlas. And in that Atlas will be directions, and landmarks that will lead others. Let's take great care then, shall we, in being careful that we, ourselves, have personally traveled to the destinations we include.

Cheers to hard times! Really.

Frank and I, in our two giddy years of marriage, have been warned by the long married folks more than once to "get ready," "watch out." Or they may say, "just you wait." "Hard times are lurking out there somewhere for you two.  Let's see if you still have that smile on your face and that glint in your eye when they hit. Then the honeymoon's sure to be over," and some people who know us well might add "finally."

I confess that Frank and I regularly reel in our gloating to each other and about each other because we are very aware we are probably obnoxious. Very happy, we are. Hinged and buckled up as one, we are. Function best together, we do. It shocks Frank, the independent bachelor til 58 and his first time saying "I do" when he said it to me. It pleases me, the one not married for the first time this time, that I know how skewed we could be by now with what I know are more typical responses to, well, most life experiences. I know what it's like to aggravate someone by the very breath I take. I know what it's like to throw the Coke can into the wall out of absolute outrage over something much, much bigger than the Coke can.

So, here's the public service announcement, and trust me on this one - I'm old enough and experienced to know ... I'm reaching elder status after all - Frank and I had a tractor-trailor load of challenge thrown at us from the very beginning than could ever be guessed or imagined. And, it chased us well into two years. Maybe this was all accelerated because we knew time was wastin'. We had enough "stuff" one day early on as we sat in his house chatting, that I looked at his front door and wondered why I wasn't hearing it slam behind me as I walked out and left that set of challenges.

But, I didn't walk out. He didn't give up. We knew that at the core of Frank and Rhonda was something Divine, something that could not be denied. Love. That was it. True love. Unconditional love. And that Core Love is still there. It's the hard times that prove it. Granted, it takes two, but we don't leave things unprocessed that grow into hatred. The air must be cleared, so we take the time to make time to really hear each other. And, that makes us feel safer with each other. The love has been tested and proven.

Bumps in the road prove a car sturdy, or not, able to absorb the shocks, or not. Turbulence in flight proves the steadiness of the pilot, or not. Crisis proves strength in a leader, unity among people, or not.

So, I say "Cheers to hard times. Really."