The Good Red Road

Two years ago today my Dad lived his last day as a free moving being out in the sunshine and soft moist air. We had had a glorious week together, on the surface, revisiting family shenanigans and sipping fresh juices. Underneath, and over and through it all though, Dad was grieving the loss of Mom. She had passed 5 months earlier and that ebulliant, knight of the round table presence of his, was now but a mask. His soul needed to join hers but his body was in pretty stellar health for a 90-year-old. His spirit managed to create a crisis. The next morning he woke up, was rushed to the hospital, and after 105 days in ICU joined my Mom on the Blue Spirit Road, on her birthday! Yes they are together now. I have no doubt that their work and challenges keep right on coming; he meets them with gusto and an explosive laughter.; she with a shrug and a chuckle.

So while they’re off working their way down the medicine wheel together, we here on the Good Red Road of earthly walking get to have moments like this. What is it to lose a dearly beloved? The choice is ours, every minute, every day and the truth remains the same.

The Good Red Road is to be walked until the moment comes when we exit at the top. To carry the spirit of our loved ones in our hearts, and live their contributions to our beings with every sublime sunset, every doggie nuzzle, every glance from a child, every lovers’ spat, and every hardship that looms. We can feel their love and experience their presence. The mind is a powerful thing and every feeling is connected to thought and every thought is a choice.

So now, in celebration of my Dad and my family of raconteurs (yes, jubilant recitals around the dinner table and regularly interspersed with Louis Carroll) I face this day of memory with:

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:

Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—

Of cabbages—and kings—

And why the sea is boiling hot—

And whether pigs have wings."