I didn’t sit down to write anything profound tonight. I really need to head for bed soon.  The Lovely Lady says I do.  She thinks when I’m not feeling great, sleep is the cure.

But, for some reason, sleep doesn’t come easily these nights.  It could be the noises from my breathing and the periodic coughing bouts.  It could be the aches and pains that come with growing older.

Could be.

I think sometimes I just need to remember things, and nighttime is a good time to do that.

Tonight, for some reason, I remember roads.

I remember straight-as-an-arrow roads in the Rio Grande Valley that ran out in front of the old green 1957 Ford station wagon as far as my young eyes could see.  I was seven or eight then.

The future seemed as far away as that horizon did, and I was sure the road to that future was just as straight, too.

I remember roads that twisted and turned into the Sierra Nevada mountains above my grandparents’ house in the Central Valley of California.  Mostly, I watched them from the back seat of the 1971 Ford station wagon with fake, plastic woodgrain on the side.  I was fifteen.

The teen years didn’t feel all that happy, but I was sure the future was closer, like that next curve.  Then too, I just knew the road I was on wasn’t quite as straight and narrow as I had once thought.  And, as we climbed the steep mountains up to where the giant sequoias stood, it was clear there was danger along the way, bringing fear.  Side by side, fear grew along with awe at the astonishing beauty of the steep slopes and abrupt precipices.

At nineteen, I remember a highway that carried me out of Texas one winter’s night and into a future I couldn’t yet see.  I pulled over into the roadside park just across the state line in Oklahoma, and threw up beside the car.

The future was still up ahead, but that night, I wondered if it was too late to turn back to the safety of the past.

So many roads.  A road to a church.  A road where, at a stop sign, I leaned over and kissed the red-headed girl beside me for the first time, returning to that spot nearly a year later to put a ring on her finger.  A road to a hospital.  That one I’ve traveled more times than I care to remember.  And, lots of different roads across and under old bridges the Lovely Lady and I have searched out in our leisure.

But tonight, I’m really thinking about two specific roads in recent memory.

A couple of weeks ago, not so far from our town, the Lovely Lady and I stood on a dirt road out in the country, along with our adult children and their spouses, as well as their children.  The nice man pointed his camera, with its long lens, at us and recorded some memories.

We kicked up some dust, and the two-year-old grandson sat playing in the dirt and rocks to get his picture taken.  I wandered over to the barbed-wire fence and let the black angus mama cow lick my fingers, leaving slobber dripping from them.

I haven’t seen the photos yet, but they’ll only be the icing on the cake after the joy of being on that road with this particular group of people.

And then, there was the gathering last Sunday afternoon in the turnaround (educated folks call it a cul-de-sac, I think) of the little road we live on now.  Neighbors actually sat in chairs on the pavement around tables and shared our food, along with our friendship.

In the middle of the road, we broke bread and told our stories to each other, laughing and remembering the past.

Remembering the past; imagining the future.

Sappy stuff, isn’t it?

But somehow, I think we need more of the sappy today.  Our daily lives are inundated with bad news from every source possible.  And inexplicably, we’ve bought into the notion that we must digest and regurgitate as much of the bad news as possible, imposing our opinions on everyone who will stop to listen or read.

Can I say this?  Most of life is lived on backroads and dirt lanes, regardless of how much time we spend speeding down the limited-access highways.  Even in the big cities, most of the hours of one’s life are lived in relative solitude, surrounded by friends and family. And sometimes, alone.

Those familiar with my writing will know I’m a fan of Mr. Tolkien and will have read one or another of his “road poems” at the bottom of my essays in the past.  I think I won’t disappoint when one is included below.

Some roads are of vital importance to the direction of our lives.  The road we choose to walk in our faith is the most crucial.

“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
(Matthew 7:13-14, NLT)

And often, we walk that road of faith together.   While the choice to walk it is made by each of us individually, company along the way is essential to our staying on the road.

We need each other as we travel.  Otherwise, how will we get up when we fall?

I’m grateful for the company on the road.  These folks are some of God’s best gifts, in my mind.

I think it may be time for sleep now.  She could actually be right, you know.  She’s been my company along the road for nearly five decades now.

Help, when we fall.

And someone to make us laugh once in a while.

Good gifts.

 

“Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.”
(from The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien)

“Remember the days of old;
    consider the generations long past.
Ask your father and he will tell you,
    your elders, and they will explain to you.”
(Deuteronomy 32:7 NIV)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2025. All Rights Reserved.