I walked a Mile with Pleasure

“I walked a mile with Pleasure.
She chatted all the way;
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow
and ne’er a word said she,
But oh! The things I learned from her,
When sorrow walked with me.”

~By Poet Robert Browning Hamilton

I’ve not yet encountered a soul who has escaped the “mile with Sorrow.”

Sorrow visits us in unexpected ways.  She knocks at our door with no reference to convenience or conventionality.  Totally unaware that she is completely unwelcome, Sorrow imposes herself and insists on our full attention.

I found Robert Browning Hamilton’s insightful poem when I was a young and morose creature of 9 or so years.  I enjoyed melancholy and unusually deep introspection as a lonely little girl.   The poem resonated so deeply that I turned it into a catchy tune. I have sung my rendition often in times of deep sadness.  I once sent my “song” digitally to a friend that was battling with lung and brain cancer during those pandemic years.

When she walks with us, Sorrow’s prescence is fierce and raw and overwhelming, but so devoid of words and logic.  She seems best articulated through music.  Perhaps that’s the reason why I felt the need to songify this poem for my own sorrowful miles.

This summer I lost my step father to an agressive metastatic cancer.  My journey as a caretaker was so rapid and demanding that it was nearly surreal. My father visited the ER just before the 4th of July and passed away before Labor Day.  My relationship with my step father itself was complicated and nuanced, as many familial relationships are.  I had lost my mother many years prior, and have learned that the grieving process is neither linear, nor rapid.  For me, grieving takes on the form of an arduous winter thaw.

The mile is long and winding, but I am certain that Sorrow’s companionship is filled with opportunities to break wide open and to spill out like messy balls of yarn, if we are willing.

Sorrow wordlessly impels us:
to throw off layers of unnappreciation so that we can truly see what is valuable and most worthy of our time and attention;
to lower our shields of hyper-independence so that we can seek others and hold them close;
to penetrate illusion and distinguish between what is sacred and what is unsubstantial.

That is simply not something that the garrulous miles with Pleasure could ever reveal to us.