The Road Built Together

As Leigh Anne and I prepare to leave in a few days, we are taken aback by the special summer we experienced.  The chance to visit with all of our loved ones: family, friends, students and many more. It's been awesome! One of the most amazing things to think about is looking around at everybody and realizing how many roads were taken for them to be a part of our lives.  Some with military backgrounds, or business, that led them from one location to another, others who we have met through school and are also from different areas around the globe or the U.S., and even those who have never left an area but has blessed us with friendship.  It's crazy to think about all the choices made, the life changes necessary or even the coincidences which created the environment where one word or a smile changed strangers into long-lasting friendships.  When around the dinner table with friends and family over a bowl of Tortilla Soup, or Spaetzle mit Rouladen, take a second and ponder how everyone came to be where he/she is at that moment.  We are truly blessed to know so many wonderful people! 

The past leaves an indelible footprint in our lives and personalities, but what is cool to think of is where we can walk forward--together.  In Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken," choosing the road less traveled is important, but the fact everyone's road before has diverged into ours is amazing. Leigh Anne and I are comforted by the fact we take everyone with us in our hearts as we build a new road altogether waiting for the day when all of our roads may meet once more.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost