Requiem for a Sojourner

Picture credit:  Washington Post

Copyright © 2012 by Ralph F. Couey, written content only

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Requiem enim Peregrinus

Requiem for a Sojourner

Life is a journey and like every other journey, it has a beginning and an end. It is an existence bound by the limits of time and space.

 

Today you left home on your motorcycle. And somewhere out on the road, the journey of your life came to an end.

 

To a rider, a motorcycle is not just a machine. It is the ticket to adventure; a way of leaving the mundane and passing through the musty wardrobe into a world where the possibilities are as limitless as the universe that surrounds us.

 

To ride is an experience and an expression of joy that, like love, can never be explained, but only felt.

 

It was in that moment when you felt most alive that you were taken away.

 

We who knew you, who loved you, who shared the joy of your life now feel an empty ache, one that will never completely heal.

 

But in the midst of our sorrows, we take comfort that your last moments were ones imbued with that singular joy of a motorcyclist in a world without horizons.

 

As we shared the road and the ride, we also shared the joy, and thus we were bound together.

 

We will think of you when we are on the road. We will think of you when we feel the urge to ride,

seeking places we’ve never been, things we’ve never seen, experiences we’ve never had.

 

When the horizon calls to us, it will be your voice that we hear.

 

You now are a Sojourner on a ride without limits on a journey of indescribable beauty. You have nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there.

 

Joy trails in your wake. Peace lies ahead.

 

The sun is warm, the day is perfect, the road is wide open.

 

Ride on, Brother;

 

Ride on.