Can I Go With You?
By Jay Jay Speaks
July 11, 2012
“Can I go with you?” is what I hear her every time I grab my car keys from the small table located by the front door. “You don’t even know where I’m going” I respond with a smirk on my face. “I don’t care, I wanna go anyway,” is her response. This is the dance that my oldest daughter and I do every time I grab my keys to leave the house, or I should say every time she’s within earshot of the sound of dad’s dancing keys. This familiar routine always warms my heart, knowing that she’s my “road dog.” This same daughter has accompanied me to diversity trainings (as far as Cleveland, OH), keynote speeches to college crowds and to work related evening events throughout most of her life. She travelled with me to Chicago (8 hours round trip) to pick up her little sister, a couple of weekends ago. As we travelled across Ohio, through Indiana and into Illinois, she sat in the passenger seat looking out the window in silence for miles and miles, I’d just look at her and smile. She seemed content to just be a passenger. Sometimes we’d talk about silly stuff and other times serious life stuff or as serious as life stuff can be for a young girl, living in middle class suburban neighborhood. I like having her accompany me. She doesn’t talk too much, like her younger sister and she doesn’t totally reside in her own little world distracted and disinterested in other people, like her little brother. I guess as far as travelling companions go she’s just right.
Can I go with you? Just a simple question, consisting of only 5 words but those words arranged thusly can mean so much if you move beyond just the literal and superficial. The answer is usually “YES,” you can come with me, but I realize in the greater understanding of life there are times, she won’t be able to go.
As someone who looks out and sees the largeness of life and the complexities presented by living a full, whole and involved life I understand that there are places I have been, places where I am currently and places I have yet to go that NO ONE ELSE CAN GO WITH ME. There are places that each of us must go alone. There are places we will find ourselves, where few will want to go with us. And others places where valued friends, trusted lovers and dear family, simply won’t BE ABLE TO GO WITH US. Some of these places are the dry seasons of life. Others will be the rainy seasons, not the rain that gently nourishes the plants and causes them to grow, but the apocalyptic down pour that drowns crops, animals and weary pedestrians who happen to get caught by the storm surge. The type of rainfall that ruins houses and washes away a lifetime of work, accomplishment, achievement and good-will. Some of these bad weather seasons will come out of nowhere and seemingly wash away your support and supporters, while others you will see coming, like a storm moving in across the open plains of the great mid-western U.S. You will welcome some of the seasons because you know there will be a purging of hangers-on and the superficial friends who are not really there for you anyway. Other times you will anticipate, prepare, store up what you think you will need to weather the storm, only to find out that some things you can never really be ready for.
Some of you reading this have already encountered this phenomenon. You’ve dared to do something no one else in your family has done and instead of finding open arms and welcoming smiles you’ve been greeted with “I hope you don’t think (fill in the blank) makes you better than me!” Or perhaps someone else has decided to lose weight, to adopt a more healthy lifestyle for themself only to be told by those who were accustomed to the rounder, more ample you, “You ain’t gonna keep that weight off, we always been big-boned and ain’t nothing wrong with that. Who do you think you are?” While others will simply find that family and/or friends don’t agree with some of the decisions they’ve made for their own lives.
As much as we would all like to know that there will always been someone with us, someone to keep us company on the road of life the reality is we come into this world alone and we will leave it on our own as well. If we are blessed and if we are lucky we will have companions to walk with us for portions of our journey. Perhaps we will have company for significant stretches on our pathway but eventually and inevitably we will sojourn on our own for other stretches. Whether those lonely sojourns are self-imposed due to bad choices, ill-conceived decisions and mistakes or we are dealt a blow by the unseen hand of fate WE WILL ALL WALK ALONE AT SOMETIME.
I don’t know if this comes as good news or bad news to you as you read these words. It is bittersweet to me. I would love to have “good company” while I traverse “bad roads” but that doesn’t seem to always be the case. So I am resolving within myself to make peace and pleasantries with my only steady companion, ME.
“Yes, sweetie you can go with me,” until that day comes when you too will have to travel alone.
Be grateful for your traveling companions, whether they are only there for the short trips or the long hauls, let them know that you appreciate their company, because the time will come when you’ll look for someone to go with you and no one will be found. Show your appreciation today.
Don’t wait until Monday, do it today.
