Life continues with or without you

This past week has been a brutal reminder of the fact that time does not stand still while you serve in Peace Corps. Parents grow old, family evolves, friends move on.

Unfortunately I was reminded this as I prepare to attend the funeral of my last remaining Grandparent. Life has a funny way of working. Instead of using my plane ticket to see my Grandma for the anticipated last time I'm using my ticket to bid my farewells in a different manner.

The reality of this situation reminds me that life doesn't stop while I'm away. It reminds me how precious each and every day is with the people we love. It reminds me how numbered our days here on this earth really are. Most of all it reminds me what a blessing life is.

There are two sides to every story, however in this life you only live one. The path we choose today defines the very stories we tell tomorrow. One can stay and experience all the wonderful things that happen in the everyday life or one can go and experience the world for all that it is. Neither experience creates bad stories, just different ones than we might've told. And so my story unfolds.....

With this I leave you a a poem by Robert Frost- The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.