Along the Iron Rod

I've been thinking about our journey through this life and the iron rod journey.  We start this journey with our family to help us or in some cases hinder us. In my journey my family is a very important source of strength for me. Then we marry and our spouse becomes our main source of strength. You go along through all the hills and valleys, thicks and thins together hand in hand. But when that spouse chooses to abandon you by either divorce or in my case die, the ground is ripped from under you and all you can do is hang onto that rod. I felt for so long that I was dangling from that rod, somehow I had the strength to hang on. Then of course the mist of darkness comes and blows against you trying to make you let go.  And all you can do is pray for the strength to hang on. No spouse to be seen anywhere.  Divorced people who still have living ex's, keep going to defy them. They have something to get angry at and use that anger to move on. I don't get that luxury. Mine just vanished. He's not lost in the mist of darkness, not over the cliff into the dark abyss below, not in the tall and spacious building, not ahead of me or behind me. Just gone with no explanation. Yes others have lost their loved ones along the way. But they get to know they are waiting for them on the other side and they are still loved.  I don't get to have that perfect knowledge. But there was a light at the end of my dark tunnel.  A new travel companion. (Tracey) No longer do I feel the lost and loneliness and the vulnerability of being alone. Now I can continue on the path with a new perspective. 
I was delayed in my journey for a couple of years. I'm on my way again. 

Now I see others who are waylaid on their journey by no fault of their own. Because of choices loved ones around them make. I see them dangling from the rod surrounded by that horrible mist of darkness that is depression, hopelessness, confusion, loneliness, sorrow and pain. How to help?  I myself gathered strength from passerby's who would offer encouragements and acts of kindness. Yes a few would step on my fingers as they skipped merrily by, oblivious to my plight. But I didn't pay them no mind, because I saw what was coming up ahead for them.

So as you make you way along the iron rod, no stepping on fingers of those dangling, do offer whatever support you can, do smile and say you can do it, do have a silly song to sing to help lighten the mood, and try to have patience for those who are oblivious.