More random thoughts on my journey following the death of my wife, Renee.

I'm typing this on July 4, 2022 - the day we celebrate Independence and Freedom, the day we celebrate patriotism. The day we celebrate dreamers, as the last verse of "America The Beautiful" says:

Oh beautiful for patriot dream

That sees beyond the years

Thine alabaster cities gleam

Undimmed by human tears

It took dreamers to break away from the bonds of Colonialism and establish, as Lincoln said, "a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." I love dreamers. I love patriots. Don't you?

Renee was a patriot. She loved this holiday. She always made sure the house was decorated with a patriotic motif, and, of course, she would wear red, white and blue on the actual day. Every year, she made sure that we would watch live [AND RECORD on the DVR so she could re-watch it when I was at work] the PBS show, "A Capitol Fourth". That's where we would get our "fix" of fireworks every year. And we always had hot dogs, the quintessential Fourth of July food, for supper while we watched the show.

Today, as usual on the Fourth, I remembered the anniversary of the first time I almost made a hole-in-one. It was 1979, before Renee and I met, and I had just started trying to learn to play this most frustrating, maddening, and wonderful of games. My sister and her husband, Jerry, were living in Jackson, Mississippi, and they had invited me and Mom and Dad up for the Fourth. Jerry and I and one of his friends played golf while the rest, having more sense, stayed inside, out of the nearly unbearable heat. [Yes, even back then, summers were hot!] And while I remember nothing about the other 17 holes of misery, I remember everything about the near ace. It was a long par three - with nearly 200 yards of grass between me and the flag. I unleashed a "stinger" - a low shot designed to go straight. OK, it was actually a "worm burner" - a shot that never gets into the air at all, and not by design. It was just a terrible shot; but the ball rolled on the ground right at the flag, finally coming to a stop about 12 inches short of the hole. Just a tiny bit more and it would have dropped into the hole! I never tired of re-telling this story to Renee every Fourth of July, and she never tired of hearing me re-tell it - at least she didn't act like she did - another reason I loved her.

All golfers dream of making a hole-in-one. After having almost achieved that dream within just a few weeks of taking up the game, I must confess that I assumed my dream would come true, no doubt many times over, and that it would happen sooner rather than later. Instead, I sit here, on the 43rd anniversary of my first near-ace, with the dream still unfulfilled. In fact, as best I can recall, I have only been really close to an ace one other time in all those years - this time as a result of an excellent shot rather than a flukey, terrible shot like the first time. And it was even closer - probably two inches from the hole. But, it was still just another "almost". And now, maybe it's time to wake up and realize that this dream is probably out of reach.

Dreams. Oh my. They are such wonderful things - so empowering as we work to achieve them, so dejecting when they are unfulfilled. It might not seem that our little family had many great dreams, and that is, I suppose, probably true. Or it would be if there were a way to measure dreams. To us, they were our dreams, and they were all we needed when it came to dreams. And all of those dreams included all three of us in them. They were not dreams of traveling to exotic places, or of moving to a different town - they were simple dreams, bound up by the word "together" - all of us here, together, all of us serving together, learning together, growing old together, finding joy in being together.

Some slightly altered lyrics from "I Dreamed A Dream" in "Les Miserables" keep ringing in my head:

And still I dream she'll come to me

That we will live the years together

But there are dreams that cannot be

And there are storms we cannot weather.

"Together". It seems so simple; it seems so easy; it seems like not too much to ask for. It seems so far away now.

I know I'm not the first one; I know I'm not the only one to watch dreams crumble in a moment - in a sudden, unexpected, unanticipated moment. I suppose there is some comfort in not being alone in such loss. Yet small comfort it is. Only darkness now lies where bright dreams once stood. And yes, I suppose the answer is simple - "Start looking ahead again; start dreaming again."

Oh, ok. Let me just start.

And maybe I can still make a hole-in-one. A guy can dream, can't he?

Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd