Approaching the Bridge

It all goes back to my grandfather, Daniel Bull. His 31-page memoir inspired me to spend thirty years listening to the life stories of 80-year-old people. That was the essence of my one-man business, Memoirs Unlimited, a private ghostwriting service. From 1988 until two years ago, I interviewed elders and edited their stories into private books of memory. Now finally surrendered to retirement, I have left that professional writing life behind. 

What you learn following a parade of 80-somethings through the towns of their lives is that by that age most things drop away. It’s delightful to share time with someone for whom ego is only a Latin pronoun. Eighty-somethings, or the successful ones with whom I worked, have ceased obsessing about themselves and their accomplishments. They were all more interested in memorializing their parents and grandparents than their own doings. My clients knew they were leaving this earth and soon—crossing the bridge from which there is no coming back, wanting to leave a few precious things behind on this side of the chasm. They entrusted these things to me to assemble into a book. 

Now 70 myself, I realize that my own dropping-away is here and ongoing. I saw this last night as I watched the only professional sport with any attraction for me anymore, NFL football. NBA: too woke. NHL: too cold. Baseball: wake me when it’s over. I missed the end of “the game of the year,” Mahomes over Allen, Chiefs over Bills in OT, because I just don’t care. Maybe it was the Patriots’ lackluster exit from the 21-22 season that did it for me, but I think it’s more than that. I am approaching the bridge, still in the distance but near enough to see. And all that matters is the One waiting patiently on the other side. 

This morning I fly back to Florida, where my wife and our condo and croquet club await. I will be jetting back and forth once a month, probably all year long, because I have a foot in both places now: here where we raised our kids and still have a home that is far too big for two old people; and there where I’ve found that 900 square feet of condo contain just about everything I need.

Also, I am flying back and forth because I’m in formation to be a spiritual director, a three-year process of instruction, practical training, and supervision beneath the enormous circus tent of the Catholic church in a small concession manned by Oblates of the Virgin Mary. Between now and October, that training includes service as a prayer companion to individuals who want to deepen their relationship with the One who waits and watches. I have prayer companions now in both Massachusetts and Florida, and Zoom, except in need, doesn’t cut it. 

This vocation, which grows in me, is mobile; relies on no fixed location; can be applied in a church, in my office, on a park bench, on a beach—wherever two are gathered together. Or three. Because He, that One waiting there, is also standing here. Always and wherever we are.  

Now and again, I am privileged to be sharing the life stories of others.