A dear friend's father passed away about a week ago. The funeral was today and like quite a few days in this past year, I began driving north from my current central Maine home. I had coffee in hand early this morning, driving on a road I've driven a million times during the day and one awful time in the middle of the night.
Since it was a large funeral and involved someone very implicated in the education system, the wake was held in my old high school cafeteria. Robby, Laura, and I wandered the halls like we did years ago. Interestingly not much has changed, except some cosmetic stuff. Kind of like us really.
We were all in the same junior year English class (at least, I think we were). One of our assigned books and the bane of my existence was Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass". We had to write a letter to Whitman as an end-of-unit project and I wrote a thoughtful letter about how boring I thought it was and why.
I got this poem sent to me last week in an email from a friend. I scrolled to read it and liked it, and then I saw it was from "Leaves of Grass"! I guess some things do change, or at least are appreciated later in life anyway.
So I take the day and night off today to spend time with family and friends, and to be content. And I hope you can too.
I exist as I am, that is enough.
If no other in the world be
aware I sit content,
and if each and all be aware I sit content.
One world is aware and by
far the largest to me, and that is myself.
And whether I come to my own today or in
ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now,
or with equal cheerfulness,
I can wait.
- Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass