Just Peddling Along

Raise your hand if you've ever been on the back of a tandem. What the heck--raise both hands. You can, because you don't have to steer. You can't steer, to be more precise.

On Saturday Brad and I went on a tandem bike ride, and among other things we visited Brad's father, who now lives in a home for Alzheimer's patients. We found my great Aunt Virginia, who also lives there, sitting in one of the dining rooms. I did not know her.

She is withered beyond recognition, and she sat swallowed up in her wheelchair, head back, mouth open, eyes closed. When I touched her arm to try to rouse her, she feebly pulled her arm into herself, and mumbled incoherently. Though I told her who I was, she never responded. I cannot even tell you if she heard me at all.

My Aunt Virginia was once a wise-cracking, pasta-rolling, polka-dancing, loud-laughing woman who owned a deli with her husband, my Uncle Joe. Together they served up great mounds of wondrous food at all of our family gatherings. She always had a joke or a story to tell.

Where has that woman gone? Is she still in there? Does she know and feel things? Why doesn't God take her?

I don't know the answers to those questions. Brad, who is wiser in these matters and is living through the heartache of seeing his father suffer from that disease, said that he has come to accept that it really is all in God's timing when we go. To my mind that takes a huge amount of trust.

Peddling back home I thought about that and came to the conclusion that Brad is right, and life is a bit like riding on the back of a tandem. You can't see where you are going, and there are unseen bumps and turns... you just have to sort of hold on and trust. Brad calls out directions to me, and I must listen carefully. If I just follow his lead, we're fine. We get into trouble when I try to lean around and see where we're headed, or when I put my foot down in the middle of something Brad is trying to do. But once I am able to fall into the rhythm and enjoy the ride, it really is sweet. It's just the wind and the sun and the lovely feel of flying along. And the thing is, I do know where I will end up. If I just trust, listen, obey, hold on, and give it all I've got, when the ride is over, I will be home.