for my dad

"A YOUNG COUPLE'S PATH OF LIFE"

The young couple set their foot on the path of life. "Is this the long way?" they asked their parents and their parents said, "Yes, and the way is hard. And you will be old before you reach the end of it. But the end will be better than the beginning."

But the young couple were happy, and they would not believe that anything could be better than these years. So, they had children, and gathered flowers for them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams - and the sun shone on them, and the young mother cried, "Nothing will ever be lovelier than this!"

Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was dark and the children shook with fear and cold and the father drew them close and covered them with his coat, and the children said, "Father, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come."

And the morning came and there was a hill ahead, and the children climbed and grew weary, and the couple grew weary. But at all times they said to the children, "A little patience and we are there." So the children climbed, and when they reached the top they said, "We would not have done it without you."

And the father, when he lay down at night looked up at the stars and said, "This is a better day than the last, for my children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday we gave them courage. Today we have given them strength."

And the next day came strange clouds which darkened the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil and the children groped and stumbled and the mother said, "Look up! Lift your head high!" And the children looked up and held their heads high and that guided them beyond the darkness. And that night the mother said. "This is the best day of all, for I have shown my children their worth."

And the days went on and the weeks and the months and the years and suddenly the mother was taken. But her children were tall and strong and walked with courage. And when the way was rough, they turned to the father. And when, at last, he came to his final hill, he said, "I have reached the end of my journey and now I know the end is better than the beginning, for my children can walk alone, and their children after them."

And the children said, "You will both always walk with us, even when you have gone." And they stood and watched him as he went on alone, and they said, "We cannot see them but they are with us still, more than a memory, a living presence."

They are the whisper of the leaves as you walk down the street, the smell in your freshly laundered clothes, the cool hand on your brow when you are not well. They live inside your laughter and are crystallized in every teardrop. They are the place that you came from and the map you follow with every footstep and nothing on earth can separate you - not time - not space - not even death........