Oh Captain, My Captain

They give you a basic road map for what is to come and how to deal with it. What they don’t tell you is that all of us will tow a “Sled of Sorrow” during our lives. It’s always there. Somedays, and hopefully most, you don’t even feel it. You skip through the day and feel untethered and easy like Sunday morning. Yet that sled is still very much there. It’s looped around your shoulders, invisibly dragging behind you. When we lose something or someone close to it, the sled is loaded up. Suddenly taking a short step forward seems daunting. The heaviness is unbearable. You feel hallow inside and weak with a sick feeling. The sled weighs so much that you don’t know how you will advance, or why it had to fill up so fast and often without warning. Each day there is a little change. The reason the sled is heavy doesn’t go away, but like weight training you get stronger and learn to maneuver with it. A bit down the road you find that awful sleds a bit lighter. You regain some strength and fight your way back…the thing that filled the sled is still there but it has turned into something new…it’s a lesson, love, or peace. That awful sorrow you carried leaves you and you run again not feeling the weight. You never forget that struggle, but find the beauty in the sled. The hard thing to know is that it won’t be the last time you tow that Sled of Sorrow in walk through life.

10 years ago I wrote about my best friend in a piece called BYB, THE GOOSE & MY DOG.

–Mike O’Hara