Some Years Ago

“Some years ago” — the first three words of the first full sentence on page 146 of Brian Doyle’s book, Hoop. That was the prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday — to choose the first three words of the first full sentence of a randomly chosen book near you. Here’s the shelf within reach:

In the words of David (ben Alexander) — Okie dokie ~ Let’s do this thing!

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Some years ago I made choices. I mean, don’t we all? We make choices that seem right at the time — and then we go with them.

And they take us all sorts of places — up hills and down, around sharp bends with unexpected trials and encounters.

They take us through dark valleys.

They take us on hikes up steep hills where bramble scratch at our legs and bugs bite leaving itchy welts. But the view at the top can be amazing.

Or disappointing.

We don’t know until we get there, right?

And we can’t change the decision, we can only press on.

Some years ago I made a decision, or rather, a series of decisions — and those decisions impacted my family.

I became the primary caregiver for my father in his final years.

Last weekend, almost four years after his passing, we finally placed his ashes in the columbarium niche next to my mother’s ashes. Both of them were in the plastic boxes, provided for free by the funeral home or the crematory. They would have been pleased with that — no frivolous expenditure there.

I still wish I had saved a Cool Whip container to put my mom in. She would have loved that.

We were raised in the most unfrivolous way, but with a great sense of humor, if that makes sense. The Cool Whip container would have encapsulated that. That — and my mother’s thriftiness.

Each of their surviving children went forward to the columbarium to spend a private moment or two with the ashes before they sealed up the niche. A bagpiper played Amazing Grace while we did that.

I went forward alone — a consequence of my choices — and placed my father’s college ring in with him.

He always wore it. After he passed, I carried it in my pocket every day, as a reminder of all the life lessons he had taught me. He was a good man.

Now I’m ready to move on.

Alone in some ways, but not alone in so many others.

Some years ago I made choices — and I continue to make choices.

Honestly, I don’t make frivolous choices.

But…. some years ago brought me to today.

And now there’s tomorrow.