Our Paths No Longer One

I didn’t stop to think when I diverted my blog from our travels away from home last June to one at home, it would deliver the same kinds of surprises as being on the road.  We’ve laughed and cried, built lasting memories, put some miles on the car, and we’ve seen great vistas.  But I’d trade changing all the flat tires in the world myself for having Miki back on the road with me again.  As our paths crossed 32 years ago and became one, they now prepare to diverge from parallel, to drift in other directions to one day converge again.   

This is not to say that when one journey ends, another won’t begin.  In fact Miki was planning on it, and has been for a long time.  Pulling the ripcord on her next big adventure will leave me to finish my path as she begins another.  The next step or level, wherever she goes from here, is something that interested her.  She actively pursued and educated herself about it over the years and some of you have had those conversations with her about it.  Me, on the other hand, trusts I’m on the right track.  I probably won't discuss it with you and will find out soon enough.  I’m good with that.  In the mean time, I'll continue in the same direction for now.  Not knowing how going it alone will evolve.  Continuing the path we started.  Catching small trout in mountain meadows that have no footprints (in my dreams).  Riding my motorcycle on ribbons of gently curving asphalt, until my butt dictates it time to pull over.  And continuing to explore the visual wonder this planet has to offer.  And now I will carry on with it and carry her with me as I do, in hopes I'll see her in my rear view mirror keeping an eye on me.

As Miki’s breathing becomes less frequent and with longer pauses between, she is accompanied by me on the sidelines cheering to see her chest rise once more.  But that is the selfish in me.  She seems to get more tired with each breath and deservedly so.  Her efforts to walk through this journey and come out the other side have been nothing short of heroic.  I feel I am transitioning from feeling for her to missing her, when I am not cheering her breaths. It’s a new kind of hurt.

I received an email recently from Ami, an organic gardener Miki met and was volunteering for before this all went down.  She described how many of us, me included, let Miki get under our skin and tap into a friendship that continues to blossom for each of us in our own ways.  She wrote:

Working at the farm today, I watered a row of strawberries that will always be Miki's strawberries. She cursed the weeds in that row while she smiled at me and told me stories (and pumped me for my life story, which I willingly told). And she kept working. We solved all of life's problems that day. Miki's strawberries.

Reach back and remember how you met Miki.  How she drew you in with her smile and her ability to draw out of you your life story, and how you solved life’s problems that day.  What will be Miki’s strawberries for you?

Finally, Jerry, a friend from our whitewater paddling days wrote this for her.  As I read it to Miki yesterday, it just reinforced what she already believed, that we are all ONE.

For Miki

And a river runs through it

It courses through our lives

Over rocks, through boiling rapids

It swirls in eddies and rests in pools

It has troubled times and peaceful times

Obstacles and respites

It roars, it murmurs

Its current a power beyond our understanding

We need to sense the river

As it courses through our life

If you are open to the river

Vulnerable to its rhythms

Your life is consumed into its natural order

When you join others on the river

You merge into the current of life

Divine, exceptional and organic

Your current becomes their current

Becomes one current

Forever in the stream of life

You are one with the river

And it will forever be one with you

And with all that journey on it

And the river runs through us all

As I sit here and root for another breath, I also root for her to be at peace and move forward.  When the time comes, I will whisper a heartfelt thank you in her ear, tell her I love her, and I will place kisses her all around her face.  As I let go of her hand, I let go and trust we will see each other again.  That's how I see us parting, when she decides it's time.  But I've learned that what you see and what you get, can break your heart.