There is an iconic scene in American cinema.
It is an ending.
The lovers, having bested
The various trials and tribulations
Which did confront them
Join hands and ride,
On horseback, buckboard
Steamship, auto or other conveyance
Off into the sunset.
Hopeful music swells, fade to black.
Run credits, leaving us -
Me anyhow, wondering,
What do they find
Beyond the sunset?
I have had, to this point anyhow,
A rather wonderful life.
It has not been without
Bumps in the road.
But in all honesty
There have been amazingly few,
Knock on wood, fingers crossed,
Things I wanted desperately
Which did not come to pass.
That is not to say there
Are no scars upon my heart.
Sometimes life’s goals slipped away.
A mother and older brother
Both of whom died too soon.
Other people
Whom I dearly loved,
Chose to leave my life.
But slowly optimism pours
It’s forgetful, healing balm into the
Craquelure on the canvas
Of my life.
It was, I believe, Japanese potters
Who would intentionally leave
A minor flaw in their exquisite work
Because perfection was the sole
Provenance of the gods.
Not that I have ever
Flirted with perfection,
But it is nice to have the
Temptation of its attainment removed.
There is, however, one correction,
And it is an important one,
Which must be made
To a widely held belief regarding
The nature of existence
Beyond the sunset.
As we consider
Our final jog down the road
Into the sunset, and finally beyond,
We must realize that
It is a solitary path.
We will not be meeting
Together in that sweet by and by.
The circle will be broken.
In part because, like funerals, and
“In The Sweet By and By”
hymn from 1868,
And the far more recent notion
Of the Carter family’s “Unbroken Circle”
Were both constructions of and for the living,
From which many
Derive considerable comfort.
Yet to hold those who have moved
Beyond the sunset
To this world’s comforter
Is both selfish, and frankly,
Totally untenable.
I recently learned of an
Acquaintance who,
Knowing of their own imminent
Demise, informed their family
Of a “former friend” who was
To be barred from their funeral.
Consider the complexities that
Such attitudes could foster
Were we all to eventually
Gather at the river in some
Version of a sweet by and by.
The thought of the seating chart
Alone could cause one to
Break out in hives.
But seriously, it seems
Far more feasible that
The other side of the sunset
Awakens us to a brand
New beginning.
What we might tote along
In the saddlebags from
This life
Is not the somewhere,
Or the somethings
Or even the someones
That we loved
On this side of the sunset
But rather an increased
Ability, learned in this existence,
To better love life itself.
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