Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Bon Voyage (09/05/05)
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TITLE: Make Mine Well Done | Previous Challenge Entry
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09/11/05 -
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Grandpa helped Grandma in the kitchen by bossing her around, lifting lids, and always doing taste tests. He would tell her to add more of this or she put too much in of that. Whenever he got too much in the way Grandma would send him to the garden for a vegetable. I would follow him when Grandma got too intense. I asked a lot of questions and sometimes got few answers. I always tried to do everything they did, I even swore like Grandpa did as he stepped in doggy-do while mowing the grass. Sometimes Grandma and Grandpa would get tired of me in their hair and tell me to go watch TV. I liked that. There I learned other things.
There were always lots of good programs back then. They would let me stay in front of that old Philco for hours on end. There were movies of all sorts: mysteries, cowboys and Indians, war stories, and love stories. Of course Saturday morning, even then, had a variety of cartoons, too. My favorite was “Popeye the Sailor Man”. I used to picture myself as Olive Oil. I was really skinny back then, not that you would know it today. I remember one time Popeye was going off to war and Olive was seeing him off. She said, “bon voyage”. I thought it meant goodbye. When the weekend was over I said it to my Grandma. She just smiled back and waved, leaving me to believe that was right.
As I grew up, I watched more shows and movies. Some of them weren’t the kind I would watch today, now I’ve learned just whom to imitate. One particular movie about a ship that never made it back to shore touched me in my teen years. In my mind’s eye, I can see the dock crowded with people who waved and threw kisses to loved ones. Hankies danced in the air one-minute and blotted eyes the next. Those who stood on deck returned their gestures. As the ship sailed away, thoughts of separation heightened and crowded out hopes for a day of reunion. I can hear “bon voyage” coming from their lips. I can see the tears streaming from their faces when they find out the ship hit the iceberg, and snatching their loved ones from this life, having said their last goodbye.
I thought that’s is what bon voyage meant, saying farewell to someone going on a ship until this week when I looked it up in the dictionary. There isn’t any mention of a ship it just says, “good journey”. That got me thinking. The word “journey” causes me to examine the road that I have traveled through this life. At times it has been very difficult being a stranger in this place. When I am with fellow travelers heading for the same destination, I am encouraged and strengthened for each new day; however, along the way I have left friends and even a few loved ones for a time. Some I will never see again, yet I pray they will follow the path of our Father has placed before them.
I am here for a little while with a mission to accomplish. It‘s a responsibility to share the Good News that I have learned; to imitate Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior to the best of my ability; to use my God given talents; to show his character (not those around me) that others might come to know him. Then I will be able to hear, “Well done thou good and faithful servant”. When my journey draws to its conclusion, before I sail away to that very distant shore, I will say “bon voyage” to those I leave behind.
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