I am on the road this week, making a journey through both space and time. The space component is easy to chart. I have maps to consult for plotting a general course between my home and my destination. This aspect of my journey has a distant horizon determined by the breadth of states to be traversed for my arriving. I also have a phone to help me judge more discreet distances when the time comes to gauge the distance to the next relief station. Siri speaks kindly to me to help me effectively and efficiently find my way.

The time aspect of my travels is a little more daunting. Its maps consist of memory and memories, as many of my fellow travelers eventually come to realize, can be faulty. There is no Siri for navigating the pathway back from adulthood to childhood and that is the route I must take in fulfilling the true purpose for my journey.  We are gathering to eulogize the lost; lover, children, extended family, friends and the sole surviving member of my nuclear family, which is me.

My thoughts are not theirs. My perception of how a life was lived is distorted with those sinister moments the others cannot and likely should not know. Why disturb their search for solace by summoning up the demons that time alone has attempted to dispel? Limit truth and allow love to do its best work in covering a vast multitude of sins and sorrows and hopeless aspirations. Let delusion bury the dead once again.

I have maps and am willing to travel, just not this way again. There are places which exist expressly for me to locate with a passionate fascination among their vibrantly illustrated musings, while I dare to allow the unrepentant past to disappear in the rearview mirror. My only reservations will be those for securing another night’s lodging, with comfort in mind for body as well as soul. Life’s lessons cannot displace the past merely redeem it as long as our gaze is on the road before us with a determination to finish well by arriving safely.