“How much farther?”
I have often thought on the trail of posing myself that question of other hikers.
When the two young ladies asked the question of me, I replied, “You don’t want to ask.”
They laughed, I think a bit nervously, and headed on down the trail as I labored on up the ever climbing, seemingly never ending, incline.
‘Oh, you poor girls,’ I thought.
My concern as they turned another sharp bend and disappeared from sight – and maybe they were a bit concerned too – was that there was only one way out of where they were going and that was back up the way they were going down.
Early on in this summer’s 100 mile backpacking adventure to honor my wife’s love for me over a half-century of marriage, now lost to cancer, I myself asked that question.
“Is there a prize for those hiking this trail?”
I asked it jokingly – somewhat – of the hiker coming down but I was also somewhat serious.
I was exhausted.
I was to find out later that of the list of hikes in one of the books my kids gave me – once they heard of their dad’s plan to take advantage of the wonderful weather while wandering the wilderness in memory of their mom – the trail I was on was listed as toughest of all.
But again, I didn’t receive that book, much less read that part, until later.
He smiled and answered, “Keep going and you’ll see!”
I did.
I kept going.
I didn’t ask why he was hiking solo, nor did he ask me.
But I saw what he had seen.
I saw the beautiful delicate somehow always in pairs smiling daisies. And I saw the mountain framed in the very middle of that difficult trail.
And I see now, now that my wife is gone, I see even more poignantly the truth than even when she was here: why the pursuit of love, the intentionality of love, the ‘keep-going-and-you’ll-see’ diligent endeavor to love, is not only the prize itself, but will one day be the soul-consoling memory of having loved.
Thoughts this morning as I hold in my hands my wife’s wedding rings, rings without diamonds because, knowing that she was dying; knowing the end of her trail was approaching; without any of us knowing, she had each of the three diamonds made into necklaces for our three daughters.
If you are in love still, if you have her hand to hold still, then pursue her.
Keep going and you’ll see.
