Around 1:30PM, Good Friday, my two sons meet me. They each have two shirts

Carried across their arms,

Ralph Lauren Polo, at $29.99 each!

On plastic hangers at

Silas Creek Crossing’s Marshalls.

Simplified, yet pricey ‘outfits’ for

 

Two teenage sons.

Hurried to get back to their last day of spring break, they choose

Easter clothes very unlike what I had chosen in their younger years.

 

“Really?” I ask. “Well, that’s all you get.”

“Okay,” was their brief reply.

And they were off in Wes’ jeep while I shopped for a new

Dress and shoes.

 

Three days later across the road at

Hayworth-Miller, choosing what they would wear in their

Resting Place. Wooden boxes,

Even more than Ralph Lauren Polo shirts.

Every parent’s nightmare.

 

Down the road of fourteen years

And tear-filled memories that still,

Yet still,

Stain my heart, I choose to

 

Live.

And life gives me joy amidst

The memories of two young lives that never grew up to

Every dream we hold for our children.

Regardless, we have no promise of what’s across the road.

 

Nor of what’s down it.

Often I

Wonder what life would have held if

 

1 choice had changed the outcome of

4 lives.

 

Yet, it did.

Even in the face of great loss I have made a choice,

A reason to live a life to honor their lives. I may not know what’s across or down those earthly

Roads, but I know eternity is at the end. Eternity with my

Savior and my sons.