Lovely Letter #4: On The Journey Being Up-hill

...from husband to wife and back again.

Stu,

I feel the need to let everyone in the world know that, in fact, you have never once called me schmoopie for real. Unless they’ve watched as much Seinfeld as we have over the years, the joke will be lost on them and they might actually just think you call me that. I shutter. You know, in real life, I feel like I often have to give a disclaimer for your humor. You’ve developed it (I think) from your brother (Jeremy) and from the dry-British-wit you value in so many of your favorite authors. “He’s joking.” I find myself saying out loud as people give you odd looks. “Don’t worry, he’s joking…”. Only those who know you well and get to see the little secret sides of you would recognize such a sense of humor. It’s like a present only those with a special invitation get the privilege to unwrap.

Now, where were we…

Ahh - perhaps I should begin with the idea you touched on of holding our lives with the right value in the here-and-now, given the entire context of history. The micro blip that our life is in the timeline is, as you stated, very short indeed. Uncle Jim and my great Aunts that we had the joy of visiting with this past weekend are the perfect example. They’ve been around me my entire life, always older, always larger than life in a way. They are now frail, in need of assistance, and entering into their final sunset. I asked Aunt Marilyn what it’s like to get older, and she replied “I’ll tell you one thing - I don’t know what the Good Lord has kept me here as long as he has, but I’ll be happy to go.”

It wasn’t morbid or somber, but rather, the reality of the arch of life. It sparks, it swells, it fades. Aunt Marilyn has buried a husband, and just last year, a son. She’s walked uphill the entire way, as we all do, and over the course of that climb, has gathered rocks of experience, grief, physical ailments, lost loves, pain and sorrow that have begun to weigh down her pack. She is weary from her travels, her pack is heavy.

Up-Hill

BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?

   Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

   From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?

   A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.

May not the darkness hide it from my face?

   You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?

   Those who have gone before.

Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?

   They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?

   Of labour you shall find the sum.

Will there be beds for me and all who seek?

   Yea, beds for all who come.

I asked the Aunts if life just gets melancholy as you get older. We know one thing for certain: life changes. If you stay in the same town your entire life, you watch it change, you watch the people you love leave and pass, and one can’t help but grow melancholy for the “way things used to be”. If you leave, you miss home. Perhaps there’s no way around it in the long-run.

My great-great-grandparents on the Telford side immigrated from Norway and Sweden into Canada. That’s where my great-grandparents were born. They then immigrated into the United States, their 13 children were born in Montana. When the older children had left home and began families of their own, the Telford family moved with the youngest children to Plain, WA. That’s how we got here. My Grandpa Telford was being held as a prisoner-of-war when they moved (the family believed he was MIA and most likely dead), and came back home from war to find their Montana house empty. It took him while to find out where they’d gone and how to get there!

Aunt Marilyn and Aunt Delta told stories of Montana, of their school there, and the medical doctor/dentist who treated all their ailments with whiskey. The spoke of their 18-month old sister who died of scarlet fever. Of their brothers who were sent off to war. Of their dead husbands. Of seventy year marriages and their mother’s wood-fired loaves of bread.

This touches on perhaps one of the trickiest parts of being human.

It is always both.

It is here and, as scripture says, “not yet”.

It is too long and too short.

It is a thousand seemingly unimportant daily tasks that somehow grow into the frame of our existence.

To quote the philosopher Jerry Seinfeld, “It is what it is.”

Perhaps accepting that and leaning into what the Lord has tucked away inside it, instead of trying to cure or avoid it, is a wonderful place to find peace on the uphill climb.

I had to look up LOTR quotes for this one (as you know, my knowledge of said literature is limited… though I have seen the films so I’m pretty much an expert on those) and I’ll leave you with this dialogue between Samwise (the bestest friend there ever was) and Frodo:

Frodo: "I can't do this, Sam..."

Sam: "I know... It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here... But we are... It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the ending, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand... I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn't. They kept going, because they were holding onto something...

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo... And it's worth fighting for.

And so we walk uphill.

Love you boo.

Shaye

An audio recording of this love letter is read by me, Shaye, below and is available for paid subscribers. Thank you for supporting us in our endeavor to create content that inspires and encourages you. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription, we would appreciate your consideration of supporting us in this way. Thank you!