A Letter to My Companion

“Traveler, there is no road. The road is made by walking”      Antonio Machado Traveler

“I remember the devotion of your youth, how you loved me as a close friend, following me in the wilderness, in a land unsown.”             Jeremiah

Companion:

1. 1. 1. a person with whom one spends a lot of time or with whom one travels

      2. a person who shares the experiences of another

      3. one of a pair intended to complement or match each other.

Dear Companion,

You and I have been walking together now for over fifty years. As I look back over my life, I realize nothing has endured as long as our friendship. Your companionship has been the one constant in my life.

I don’t have to tell you that I have tested and strained our friendship throughout our journey together. There were times when I grew tired of your company. There were times when you annoyed me. There were times I preferred to journey alone. And there were times when you enraged me. At times I have ignored you, resisted you, and have even hid from you.

But inevitably, an urge would rise inside me to look for you, to listen for your voice, and return to your side and to our journey. I re-discover I cannot find peace in life alone without you. Humbled and saddened for leaving, I would rejoin you at your side.

I first heard of you from my parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. They were all friends of yours and they urged me to get to know you. They grew up in the shadow of your house. I hung around there as well. But I knew you only from third-hand evidence. To me, you were like some celebrity I might see across the street but was too afraid to approach for an autograph or photo.

Then one day we met. I was thirteen. Do you remember that day? It was a crisp fall day, and I was walking to school. A little more than a boy, not yet a man— I was unsure of who I was, of who I was becoming, of my place not just in the world, but my place in my class, in my circle of friends, even of my place in my family.  I was unsure of everything.  All that I thought was permanent and secure was changing, and I understood none of it.

It’s called adolescence—but no one ever told me it was normal, that it was a stage of life, or that I would survive my morphing body, my hyper sensitivity , and outgrow my hungry, anxious eyes.

But in that moment we first met, I sensed that you and I would be trusted friends and companions. At that moment, I made a promise to you that I kept as best I could–for a while.

On that day you changed my world.  I lost my sense of isolation and anxiety. I lost that sense that life was a big frozen pond and I was in the middle of it, listening to the ice creak and crack underneath my feet—thinking I would fall through at any moment. I was on solid ground once more.

It would not be long, however, when this would all change, and I would turn from you for the first of several times.

My baby sister died suddenly, tragically. I could not understand why this happened, and why it happened to me! In my confusion and grief I blamed you, my so-called friend and companion. I thought it was your responsibility to make sure nothing bad happened to me or those around me. I felt betrayed by you. I went for a late-night walk to hide my tears, and in a moment of anger and grief I gave you the finger and walked away from you for the next six years.

I hung around your house, and your family, only to appease my parents. I was the polite kid, hanging around the fringes of your world, yet keeping my distance while my anger continued to seethe .

Years went by with no real contact between us. I went off to college, where I felt that familiar sense of isolation, of not belonging anywhere. I went to class, went to work, and went to my dorm to study. I sometimes thought back to that one magical year when as a young teen we walked together side by side. It seemed like a dream that was fading away .

Without looking for you, I ran into you in a small bicycle shop on the campus strip. A friend of yours “re-introduced” us. I felt then as if we had never separated. I remember the surge of joy that came from our reunion, and how that feeling of connection I felt years ago returned.

All the questions I had—what should I do? where I should live? who am I? — all seemed to fade away in the power of our reunion. They were answered in the context of our friendship. With you again at my side, I had found my place. All the uncertainties of a man in his early twenties were still there, but the anxiety was gone. It was going to be OK, as long as we walked together.

Yet, as the years went by, there were times I did not take care of our friendship. Several times more I took detours, side roads, and went off on my own. Distracted by my own selfishness, I stumbled into pits.  Only then would I realize that journeying alone was never good. I would stop, turn, and find you were always there, ready again to take up the journey with me whenever I reached out.

Today I am getting to be an old man, much closer now to the end of my journey than its beginning. I feel that I should know so much more about you, but it doesn’t matter. I know you’re faithful and will never leave me to face the journey alone.

Alone in this room, facing into the dark, I light a candle in your name, inviting you to sit for awhile with me as we reminisce—two old friends who shared the same road for so long, who can sit together for hours without needing to speak, yet all the while friendship and love flows between us. It is enough to sit in silence, in the thickness of our history together, connected at the level of the heart—a connection strained many times but never broken.

So, here we are today, sitting together, watching the candlelight flicker, resting from our journeying, and readying ourselves for our next adventure—together.

Thanks for staying with me.

Bob