Horizons

This is a very exciting week around our home. My son is temporarily home from college and my daughter, the youngest, is graduating from high school in a few days. As we prepare for that event, and the gathering we will host afterward, we have gone through all manor of photos and memorabilia. Such a wonderful milestone in the life of a family, yet mixed in with all the joy and drama, there looms the bittersweet fact that both of them will be gone well before the summer is out. Don't get me wrong, we are thrilled about our next stage of life. However, at this particular stage of the journey, we find ourselves looking both forward and back with more than a little nostalgia. As so oft may be the case, I find solace in a maritime metaphor. As our entire family looks towards the broad new horizons which lie ahead, and all the adventures they promise, we can't help but keep looking back upon those things familiar. So it is with any departure. The past is so much a part of us, even though we know how many amazing things lie ahead. My hope for you is that as you gaze both directions in your own life, you may be blessed to have so much to look forward to ... and to remember so very fondly.

Horizons
As I stand upon the fantail
Gazing at our wake astern
Recalling coves and ports and passages
Back there, for which I yearn
Knowing well our journey's end
Lies but a few short hours ahead
I ponder all we've seen and done
The sum of what was shared and said
I long to come about and
To retrace the course we've run
Rediscovering those places
Redoing what we left undone
Yet, they have slipped beyond my grasp
And into my memory
Such is the nature of this life
And passages at sea
I turn, slowly, from the taffrail
And wander forward, to the bow
Where new ports and passages await
Beyond that horizon now
Yet, I glance back across our quarter
Wistfully, just now and then
Recalling, fondly, ports astern
Shared with old and new-found friends
By Frank Carpenter ©