Life’s Pillars
Friday, 08 August 2008
It’s been another hard week, 1200km done and the terrain is starting to get taxing. Gone are all the secondary roads and holiday towns; ahead lies the ragged rocky coast, sandy, soft coastal migrating dunes, occasionally pegged by reclamation done years ago with alien vegetation which, unchecked has begun to do more damage than the natural dunes could have ever done.
The bush is thick and impregnable little game tracks burrow through the wall of vegetation. This has become our only way of travelling during periods of high tide, ripping, scratching and tearing our way along the coastline. Just when this gets to the point of a mental and physical snapping, it’s rest day. But this rest day is different, the privilege of spending it in the comfort of my family home with my parents.
After over a month journeying the coast in all conditions and being at the mercy of the elements, to be at home one always feels cocooned in the safety and sanctity of your parent’s home. It’s an incredible thing, no matter how old you are maybe even a parent yourself, but coming home is just such a privilege. A feeling that you are now in the most special and caring place on the planet. So often we take this for granted that our parents will always be there to look after us, and that we can fall back on when we hit rock bottom. Unquestioningly and with unwavering love for us, they will pick us up again and again, helping us back on our feet, hoping that some day some how we will take heed to the years of advice that they can offer, learnt through decades of experience and some times the exact problems that we now face.
Often one overlooks and don’t appreciate what your parents have done for you and continue to do for us over our lives, the sacrifices, pain and some times sorry and disappointment they have to endure as they see a child go array, no matter how they have tried, but there still remains one constant .They are always there and will always be there no matter what, their love for us never falters. All a parent wants is that hug that only a child can give and those words Mom, or Dad, I love you! And yes, sometimes it’s only, I am sorry!