I was driving down the hill in Willoughby to Daniels Park when it occurred to me that I had been driving on that very hill forty years earlier and in a blinding snow storm with my Best Man, Herb, in the front seat and Alaska Paul in the back. We were looking up the far side and couldn’t help but notice several cars off the road in the ditches.
“I don’t think we’re going to get to the church this way,” Herb said.
“Just go. I’ll get out and push us up,” Alaska Paul chimed from the back seat.
I thought better of it. I reached the bottom of the hill, turned the car around carefully, and retreated the way I’d come, taking the longer, but safer route through downtown Willoughby. We made it to the church with ten minutes to spare and so started a wonderful marriage of 39 years.
It is all so different now. Holly has moved on and I have been forced to evaluate my life and steer it in an entirely new direction. It has taken two years to right that ship, but I feel I am heading steadily on a course that will fulfill me in ways different, but maybe even better, than they otherwise might have been. I hope she is happier with the life she has chosen, but we each are responsible for our own happiness and I am making mine.
I ran out to the farm to push up the manure pile and to be sure my work of the previous day…the hole from hell…had not collapsed or filled with water. It hadn’t. I drove home making plans for a spaghetti dinner for the family and once I had it loaded in the crock pot, chose to board the trainer and put some time in on the bike. I managed a sweaty hour before dismounting and spending some time exercising the dogs.
The calls of cancellation started coming in and I found myself having a family dinner alone. A co-worker had suggested I come to a candlelight Christmas service at a church in Cleveland Heights, so I decided I had time to fit something different in. I cleaned up as best I could and drove to the church after dropping Copper off back at Savannah’s. I pulled into the lot recognizing the building from a service I’d attended there many years ago. My friend Kimberly and her daughter, Hilary, were getting out of their car as I arrived and we walked in together.
It was a very unique service and like nothing I’d ever attended before. Much of it was done with a simple preaching by Tony, the minister, explaining the true meaning of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth and how we are all God’s children and made in His likeness and image and enjoy His unconditional love.
I bowed my head in the darkened room and thought about how I’d been in a church almost to the minute forty years earlier and taken sacred vows with Holly. Tears sprang to my eyes as I contemplated what I had just heard about being a Christian, forgiveness and unconditional love. I have work to do and I know it. Forgiveness is a powerful healing tool and one I’ve not availed myself of entirely in this process. Though I have totally forgiven Holly, I still have problems with another in the equation and, of course, myself. We are none of us perfect and must walk the path of life in the knowledge that we will often get it wrong. Admit, forgive, move on. I will look to achieve these things…with the help of God…in the year to come.
Bike duration: 50 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 640.
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