Taking a different road

In a hundred years, what will it matter?

The question is posed by well-meaning friends and acquaintances usually when someone struggles with a seemingly inconsequential decision.

If the decision is truly inconsequential, it will scarcely matter in a hundred days, let alone a hundred years.

However, inconsequential decisions hardly require the advice of friends and acquaintances in the first place, so those who offer that tongue-in-cheek piece of so-called wisdom may well unintentionally minimize the potential consequences of a particularly profound decision.

If the decision at hand has the smallest element of morality behind it, you can be assured that it most likely will matter, in a hundred days or a hundred years.

For example, the truth about the devastating long-term effects of divorce on children is finally beginning to emerge, no matter how amicable or justifiable the split.

When I fell in love with Danny at age 15, I fell in love with his family as well.

I admired his three older sisters and his mother, who had, by sheer dint of will, held the family together, first through his father's long absences as an over-the-road truck driver and then after his accidental death in 1968.

What appealed to me was the cohesiveness of the family unit. All three sisters were married with children and family gatherings were frequent, with plenty of food, plenty of fun and little, if any, conflict. All of these elements were missing from my experiences with my family of origin.

My admiration of his sisters was so great I soon desired to emulate them, especially his eldest sister.

Situated in a lovely home in a quiet suburb, she lived an enviable life, with a husband who obviously loved her and the requisite two children, a boy and a girl.

We were frequent guests in their home, gathering on Sunday afternoons during football season to cheer on the Broncos to their admittedly rare victories, while enjoying burritos smothered in green chili, guacamole and free-flowing adult beverages.

In the scant years between our marriage in 1973 and Ben's birth in 1975, things had already begun to change.

It was at this time that the enormous pipeline was first forming in the Alaska wilderness. Dollar signs lit up in Danny's brother-in-law's eyes and he soon contracted to go north for a year, with his wife's full blessing, to cash in on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. His extended absence had unforeseen and long-lasting consequences that are still being played out today.

The marriage ultimately failed, the children were tossed to and fro between the households, and in the process, they lost every measure of stability that had previously defined their lives.

A hundred years from now, the decisions made then will still matter. Danny's niece from that family unit is dead. The effects of years of unchecked alcohol abuse took her life at age 40. She left behind three children, one of whom is now a mother herself, although the State of Colorado has decided that she is ill-prepared to fill that role, and has taken her two young sons out of her care, at least temporarily.

Where will these two innocents now find the stability they need to grow into mature, well-balanced human beings, thoroughly equipped to navigate the complicated and uncertain future before them?

Some decisions matter, not only a hundred years from now, but for all of eternity.

My life today is the sum total not only of roads taken, but roads not taken as well. Decisions define us. They also set up the parameters of decision for subsequent generations. Our ability to see beyond this moment's pleasure, this moment's dissatisfaction or this moment's urgency, will ultimately affect our ability to rightly decide, for all of eternity, between life and death. Because whether we take the high road, the low road or find only another dead end road, in the final analysis, only one road leads safely home. Sad to say, we cannot travel back in time, to turn right where we once turned wrong. But we can choose differently -- today.

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV)