Couldn't Take You With Me

[A short essay from my Beyond Life's Boxes series.]

I couldn’t take you with me. And you didn’t want to come. Remember? That same uncanny, purposeful sense of fate that threw us together, scattered us like expatriates of Babel having lost the language, relationship and purpose of our time and place. And it didn’t matter when or where, because of you with me, it seemed like magic there. Was it school, the Marines, a church, another sojourn or road we traveled? Was it a shared faith, philosophy, or professional life? Or was it the causes and organizations, the boards and councils, or our retreats and pastimes, where our passions and purposes brought us together in common cause? Wherever it was, you were there and so was I. We knew there was a reason; we knew it was important, at least to us—and we were grateful for it. But just as fatefully, purposefully, and surely as we felt brought together, we felt pulled apart. You were gone and so was I.

You moved in your direction and I in mine, you to one box, I to another—and then another. I’ve been in some very different places with some very different people. Perhaps I’ve been led there, as I have said. But even if ushered there by serendipity alone, I’ve encountered a lot of the stuff, stories and lessons of life—seeing into it, then past it. My eyes have been widened and then narrowed, but now feel softer, more comfortable, wiser, more generous. They now see new things, and old things new. I can’t change what I’ve seen and know. I can’t and won’t go back. The call, the challenge is still in going forward. But I couldn’t take you with me then, and I can’t take you with me now. I would, but you have your own invitations and path to follow. I still love you and miss you—but in that time, place or cause we once shared together. And I’m still grateful for that time together, what it meant to me then and what it means to me now.

First written: June 2005