Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Roadtrip to Now



By Roger Wyatt


The miles fly by. I pass an eighteen wheeler out of Quebec. From my car radio comes the music of my youth - Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Kinks. The miles fly by. I'm headed to Ohio to spend time with my departed wife's family. She died ten months ago.

In Syracuse, I get gas. In Buffalo, I pay a toll. In Erie, I stop for a meal. Back on the road. I'm into the rhythm of the journey. The music drives me as much as the gas - Stones, Supremes, James Brown.

Life is not static. I intend to tell them about the new woman in my life and how deep and serious our relationship is. This roadtrip flows and changes just as our lives do. ... When she died, we spent our last moments together with eyes locked in an intense gaze. There was no more to say, just a loving gaze to share as she sliped out of her body and into eternity. In seconds a life can change forever.

Suddenly I see fragments of a blown out tire in the road ahead of me. I swerve past it. Two seconds later I see smoke from the car whose tire had blown. A second later I see the car in front of me has stopped to stare or to help. Time has slowed and seconds have become lifetimes.

I'm traveling at seventy five miles per hour. If I don't react immediatly I will plow into the back of that car. I will die or be maimed along with the other driver. In the next second I swerve into the right hand lane. In reaction to my high speed maneuver, my car fish-tails, wildly swerving left and right. In the next second I pass that stopped car. I have control of my vehicle but do I control the length of my life? Our time is not our own.

When she died what needed to be said had been said. But life keeps flowing. If my life had ended in that auto incident so much would have been left unsaid with so many others. Now is the only time we actually have. The past is a blurred memory and the future is yet to be. We must use the present wisely, it is all we have. Now is the time to say what needs to be said.



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