Journey of Togetherness
Ventura Star, November 7, 2005
By Terry Paulson, PhD

What trips with loved ones have you been putting off? Have you been waiting for the right time, and the right time never seems to come? It may be a time for you to take a journey.

As a professional speaker I spend much of my time flying over America and getting to my destination as soon as possible. After all, who has time for long journeys in today's 24/7 world. As a seasoned road warrior, I've chalked up over 2 million miles on American Airlines alone!

It wasn't that way as a youth. As a family, we would take a cross-country vacation almost every summer. We'd touch history, climb into caves, count license plates to pass the time, and fight to make sure my brother didn't get on my side of the back seat. We'd almost always end up in Kirkland, IL, the town where my parents grew up. With a population of 1,000 and corn fields as far as you could see, Kirkland would still have a Fourth of July parade, rides and fireworks to match anything I've seen in California. There would be family reunions, time on the family farms, and memories to last a lifetime. It's been awhile since we've had a family trip like that.

As with most people, I go to the movies for distraction and entertainment. Sometimes movies take me into my own life and force me to ask important questions. Elizabethtown was one such movie. My wife and I have spent almost as much time talking about it as sitting in the theater.

Elizabethtown chronicles the fictional story of a young man, Drew Baylor, whose life is not going well. His innovative idea has just lost his employer nearly a billion dollars. He's been fired, lost his girlfriend, and is ready to commit suicide, when his sister calls. Drew's father had died suddenly while visiting the small Kentucky town where he had grown up. Figuring his suicide can wait until his responsibility to handle his father's funeral is completed, he heads to Elizabethtown, a place his father promised to take him but somehow never did.

On his flight to Kentucky, he meets Claire, a very cute and caring flight attendant, who adopts him and gradually guides him into a romance and challenges him to take a critical journey across America. There is much to like and to laugh about in this movie, but it is the journey that Drew ends up taking after the funeral that impacted me the most.

Claire gets him to promise to take the journey he and his father never found the time to take. She provided the roadmap, the destinations, the music and the motivation to take the journey that changes his life. Through flashbacks, conversations with the urn carrying his father's ashes, listening to and singing along with music, encountering the perspectives that only people and history can provide, he climbs out of his date with death and into a reaffirmed appreciation for life.

Enough about the movie; see it yourself. Know that the tears shed in the theater weren't just for Drew. I kept thinking about my parents and my son. Had we shared enough journeys?

My parents are approaching ninety, and I fear a long journey would be too much for them now. At any time, I could lose either one of them. I'd miss them so, but would my busy calendar allow me time to truly grieve their loss? I found myself thinking about driving their ashes back to where they will be buried in Kirkland. I'd have time to cry, to laugh, and to even leave some of their ashes on the journey. I'd journal my memories of our times together and what they meant to me. I'd thank God for their lives and promise that I'd see them again in heaven.

I thought of our son, Sean, and his sons, Micah and Jeremiah. Will I have had the journeys with them that my parents took with me? Will my son feel the same thing about me that I feel about my dad? Would he want to take my ashes on a trip back to Kirkland to be laid to rest alongside my dad and mom? I would hope so.

Our son, Sean, recently asked us to go on a journey with him back to the Holy Land. Sean had served in the Army and had missed our family trip to Sweden and our family cruise to celebrate my parent's 50th anniversary. We had caravanned as a family back to Kirkland, but that had been long ago. When you're 60 and have only so many years left to take journeys, our other commitments seemed insignificant compared to a chance to visit Israel with our son? We signed up for the trip and look forward to it.

After seeing Elizabethtown, I am reaffirmed on the power and importance of such journeys together-taking time to cry, to laugh, to learn, and to grow together. Thank God, on this trip, he won't have to be speaking to ashes!

Dr. Terry Paulson is a psychologist, speaker and author of The Dinner: The Political Conversation Your Mother Told You Never to Have. Share your comments at his PoliticalTalk Blog or contact him at Terry@TerryPaulson.com.

—May we never forget how truly blessed we are!