random thoughts that may lead nowhere or...

One of those unexpected AHA moments reached up and smacked me this weekend when I realized that I will turn 70 in July. For years, Di and I have been talking about doing a 60/70 road trip. We spent an extended time in Canada for the 50/60 event. We took six weeks in the UK at the 25th anniversary of my ordination. We had planned a Nova Scotia and PEI journey for our 25th wedding anniversary until COVID put the kibosh on that adventure. (We compensated two years later with a late summer visit to Montreal and then a few days in the Eastern Townships over Thanksgiving.) All of which is to say that the idea of making this sojourn was not startling. No, what knocked me on my butt was the realization that this hallowed time was now upon us and COVID or not, ready or not, our birthdays were a'coming.

We were watching one of our nightly European mysteries on TV when the subject came up again. We were kicking around ideas when all of a sudden I blurted: "Wait a minute, that's THIS year! OMG!" Having dinner with our daughter and son-in-law the next day added gravitas to this awakening. They tenderly smiled at my surprise, wondered how we were planning to mark the occasion, and then served us a stunning Middle Eastern supper. Tentatively, we are now thinking again about trying to get up to Nova Scotia and PEI: we can drive, take our time, and be reasonably assured that the contagion will be in check by late August. It's a grand time to be there as we discovered some 15 years ago. And while we both would love to visit London and Scotland again, that seems unlikely for a ton of reasons. One more encounter with the way aging asks us to make peace with letting go of another small part of our former lives.

This relinquishing is inevitable given health, mobility, and finances. If COVID has taught me anything it has something to do with acceptance, yes? This time two years ago life was full and then, over night, it came to a crashing halt. We talked about this at supper this weekend with our children, too. We had just returned from Tucson, been to Ottawa a few times in January and February, and then celebrated our daughter's birthday at a favorite local Mexican restaurant. Then, BAM, lockdown. Who knew it would essentially be a two year endurance test? Especially those of us over 60. Or with health conditions. Or those who could not work from home? The late Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr - author, retreat leader, and vocation director at St. Scholastica Monastery in Ft. Smith, AK - put it like this in her poem, "The Sacrament of Letting Go."

Slowly
She celebrated the sacrament of

Letting Go…
First she surrendered her Green
Then the Orange, yellow, and Red…
Finally she let go of her Brown…
Shedding her last leaf
She stood empty and silent, stripped bare
Leaning against the sky she began her vigil of trust…
Shedding her last leaf
She watched its journey to the ground…
She stood in silence,
Wearing the color of emptiness
Her branches wondering:
How do you give shade, with so much gone?
And then, the sacrament of waiting began
The sunrise and sunset watched with
Tenderness, clothing her with silhouettes
They kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her vulnerability
her dependence and need
her emptiness
her readiness to receive
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening she stood in silence and celebrated
the sacrament of waiting.

This never comes easily to any of us. My AA friends insist that acceptance is a life-long learning event that humbles and reshapes everything we once considered to be true. We can fight it, ignore it, challenge it, deny it, live into it begrudgingly, or embrace it. Whatever we choose, and it's probably a bit of all of this and more, the promise of God's peace and serenity within only comes through making peace with the sacrament of letting go. The last episode of "Afterlife," the Ricky Gervais show about grieving, expresses this with depth and tenderness. (I recommend watching the whole arc unfold over three seasons.)

It's now clearly time for the 60/70 road trip to take on its own wonderful life as we start to plan, save, do some modest physical training for long walks, and all the rest.