On Earth as in Ireland, Pt. 2

Part 0 (The Dream) — Part 1 (The Fog) — Part 2 (The Hike) — Part 3 (The Colors) — Part 4 ( The Flu) — Part 5 (The Flowers) — Part 6 (The Cathedrals) — Part 7 (The Rest)

Cassie and I had this little ritual every time we would go to Disney World. We would go, we would have fun, and we would leave. But as we were walking through the parking lot on the way out, I would run up behind Cassie, swoop her up in my arms, and carry her the last couple minutes to our car. Those were the only times I could tell Cassie she was a burden. And they were the only times I could joke I was happy to let go of her.

We spend a lot of our lives picking up more—more responsibility, more things to clutter our home, more facts to cram in our heads, and more experiences, whether good or bad. There is so much we want more of too—more friends, more joy, more respect, more in the bank, more security, more challenges, more space, more time. We want to take on more of life. But we also have to spend time taking off life.

We work day-in and day-out looking forward to those moments when we take off from our jobs. We try hard to take our minds off the stresses. When we’re with the people we love most, we can be at ease, taking off the masks we wear in front of everyone else. We take our eyes off the distractions to focus them on what really matters. After spending a day wearing the tread off our shoes, we get home and let out a sigh of relief as we take off those same shoes, now covered in dirt and grime from the day behind.

It’s a juggling act: you pick some up, you put some down, only to have more thrown right on top. And until the day we die, we never get to take off as much as we’ve picked up. Even Jesus admits he only has more to burden us with—just that the burden of following him is exceedingly light compared to any other lifestyle we would be carrying on with.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

These were facts of life Cassie knew well. She was often acutely aware of the burdens she bore. She looked forward to taking off from work in June and to taking off from Orlando so we could land in Dublin. But instead of taking off from life, life was taken from her. She got to set down all the burdens, all the responsibility, and all the stress to cross the River Jordan.

But we didn’t. She laid down her burdens while others had to pick them up. There were Sunday School lesson plans left unfinished, a desk at Kissimmee Christian Church with an unattended inbox, planners full of to-do list items left unchecked, chores she promised she would always do, friends who would miss their confidant, and dreams left to her husband to try and live out each day, despite coming back to an empty home each night. We were left to pick up those things she had been tasked with carrying.

After three months of moving through life without her, I found myself sitting in a townhouse in Dublin. Though I had spent the last few days exploring the city and its history with incredible friends, I decided I wanted to see the Irish countryside without having to look through a window. So I packed my bag full. I wrapped myself in a t-shirt, a flannel button-up, and a raincoat. I strapped on my hiking boots. Then I picked myself up and hopped on a bus headed south. I was off to County Wicklow to hike a small portion of the 129 km Wicklow Way.

I started in the middle of the Way, a part of it that was mostly paved roadways. Then the road turned to a dirt path as I tried to follow the trail signs. Parts of it were breathtakingly beautiful. Other parts just took my breath away as I climbed up steep hills for what felt like miles at a time. I would at one moment be looking at the Wicklow Mountains over an idyllic scene comprised of beautiful green fields and flocks of sheep behind an old wooden fence. Then the next moment I’d be swarmed by flies buzzing up out of the mud that some ferns or cycads were growing in. I would be walking down a narrow sylvan path straight out of Peter Jackson’s portrayal of the Shire, hemmed in by foxgloves and buttercups, crossing over babbling brooks. Then I would find that I’d wandered into a dead end, forced to stomp through thistles as tall as my shoulders to get back to the Way without backtracking half a mile. I would see amazing countryside, so beautiful I couldn’t help but think of Cassie. Then I would find that I had meandered off the trail (several times) and I couldn’t help but think of how Cassie would lecture me.

The hike ended in Glendalaugh (Gaelic: Valley of Two Lakes). In this valley were the ruins of an ancient monastic village, founded in the 6^th century by St. Kevin of Glendalough. Though dating back 1500 years, most of what remains was built built between the 10^th and 12^th centuries. The roofs had long since been taken off by storms and by time, so all that were left were foundations and walls of worn down stone. Glendalough’s monastery had been repeatedly plundered by pagans and pirates well into the 14^th century, when it was finished off by invading English forces. It was one of the most esteemed monasteries in Ireland for a time, but nearly everything that had been built over the hundreds of years was taken away or destroyed.

What surprised me most was the amount of gravestones throughout the ruins. The landscape within the remains of the monastery walls was mostly cemetery. And not all the graves were as ancient as the rest of the site. Some had just been dug, with newly installed granite headstones. Others were worn and crumbling, with names—legacies even—gone, removed and stripped away from the stone. Christians who died hundreds of years ago and those who died weeks ago were buried right next to each other. All of them had spent their years building up lives, building up churches, and building up legacies, only to let them go with their dying breaths, passing them on to the next generation. And while those who remain will try to carry on those legacies, even their names will be taken off by time.

I kept walking through, passing more ancient buildings, streams, the Lower Lake of Glendalaugh, and waterfalls until I ended my journey at an eastern shore of the Upper Lake, just as the sun began to set behind the valley. After hiking for nearly 10 miles, I let my legs give out from under me. I took off the backpack I had been lugging around all day. And there I emptied it.

I had been carrying Cassie’s boots that she and a friend picked out just for Ireland. I thought of all the times she put them on, all the times she wore them out, and all the times she took them off. I thought of the feet she filled them with—the pinky toes she thought looked weird, the nails that were painted but usually chipped because she felt guilty spending money on pedicures, laying them across the couch so I couldn’t sit down, or kicking me at night when I would get into bed after a shift ending at 2 AM. I thought of all the miles she had left in those boots and of all the places she had left to go.

I sat on the shore and made a list in my head of how I got there: since Cassie had passed 1) I took off from any work, 2) took off from Florida, 3) took off from my friends, and 4) took off from the paths I planned on taking that day. I got to the end of it somehow and 5) took the weight off my feet. Now there was one thing left to take off, and it didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter.

As I hiked, climbed, rambled, bushwhacked, and sweated on and off the Wicklow Way, I had been thinking of Cassie. I thought of what she would say, of what she would do, of how this trip would be different with Cassie on it, and I thought of how much I missed her. With every step, I loaded myself up with more and more emotion. With every step, I piled on more grief. So here, at the end of the journey, I took off the lid from wherever in my heart I had been bottling up all those feelings. I cried. I cried till the sun began to sink behind the hills.

Then I had to pick myself back up. I hefted my bag. I lifted my spirits. I packed up her shoes, still dirty from the last adventure we went on together. But I couldn’t help but feel I was carrying more than all that. I couldn’t help but feel I have more inside me now that Cassie isn’t at my side. And I still feel that way. Now every time I rise, I pick up her hope, her faith, her burden for sharing love with others. I carry with me her love for her family. I carry the love she gave to me. As I walked back, past the weather-beaten gravestones, I prayed that legacy is one that will never be taken off me.

Part 0 (The Dream) — Part 1 (The Fog) — Part 2 (The Hike) — Part 3 (The Colors) — Part 4 ( The Flu) — Part 5 (The Flowers) — Part 6 (The Cathedrals) — Part 7 (The Rest)