Throwback Thursday The Road

"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."--Harriet Beecher Stowe American abolitionist and author

Throwback Thursday: The Road

The last few weeks we have been talking about staying happy, staying positive, and never giving up even in the midst of great tragedies. On more than one occasion I have shared my tragedies with my fans and I plan to always do that, because I want you to know the man behind the words. My critics say that I use my tragedies as some sort of excuse.  I still don’t quite understand that, but my fans say it helps them through their own struggles and this is why I share. As most of you know my 1^st wife passed away 12-28-2002. Her death inspired a lot of writing at the time of her death and many years later. I wrote ‘The Road’ on 1-18-04 and it would seem that her death was still current in my mind. I took some grief on this selection of writing when I posted it in a writing forum. One person called it too negative, but I believe they failed to see the true meaning of the piece. They focused on ‘the long and despairing road’ being the only road you would travel in life. That is not how I meant it.  I believe that there are many roads we will travel in life. “The long and despairing road” is just the street name per se and if we don’t like that road we can change streets.

The Road

1-18-04 12:30PM

On the long and despairing road, light fails to shine on you.

The weeds of anguish seem to choke the spirit of life out of you.

And on this road of sorrow the thorns of time will stain your feet with blood.

The rocks on this road will bruise your heels along the way.

So when the sun sets on your road and the storm sets in, what do you do?

When your love for life dies like a flower without water, what do you do?

When your road becomes flooded what do you do?

Our road will not always be dry and sunny.

It will not always be happy and free.

There will be times that we will have to camp beside our road till time permits us to pass.

There will be times that we must stop and rest till our soul is unaltered by the changes of life.

For some of us the road will be long and others it will be short.

We must live though as if we will travel into the golden age of life.

And as we grow old our feet will slow but all rules will still apply.

There will be happy songs,

And sad tunes along the way.

We will see many births of loved ones and we will see many deaths of those special to our heart.

Through it all we must keep the pace and tread on even when we are weary.

For this is the road.

For this is our life.

For this is our road,

and that is our history.

The Road is from my book “The Long Step Forward”

published by Bad T Publishing & Productions.