After breakfasting with my railroading buddies Tuesday I was contemplating all the work on my task list, mostly related to prepping the house for a visit from our daughter and the grandkids later this week. My pondering shifted to my business and how my business plan will be changing as I move into “retirement”, and do more business writing. And then I thought about this blog. 

I went back to my journal and noticed the date of my last post was four days after my birthday, last year! Can it really be that I stopped maintaining my journal for eighteen months? Can it really be that life intruded on my writing habit for a year and a half? Can it really be that Tuesdays with Terry became Terry’s Railroading Corner?

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. A delightful trip to Tennessee with my youngest brother for company. The winding down of my business activities. The decline and death of my mother-in-law. Supporting my wife with the management and distribution of her estate. The progression of my father’s cancer. The trials and tribulations of my siblings. The visits with the grandkids and watching them grow like weeds! The loss of friends, railroading buddies, and former co-workers. Camping trips to places we hadn’t been in twenty years, and the remarkable changes there and all around us.

Time marches on whether I like it or not, and I missed the opportunity to capture my impressions of so many changes, so many memories. It makes me sad because I realized, just recently, that the reason I enjoy writing is that my children and grandchildren will be able to read and remember what Dad and Pop-Pop thought about and said and experienced. It’s a way for me to live on when I’m no longer present in their lives, but only in their hearts.

It gives me comfort knowing that I have a chance to make a difference for someone, somewhere down the line, long after I’m gone. But if I’m going to make that difference, to be that difference, I need to do something about it now, and every day that I have, however many, or few, that may be.

Getting back to being the writer that I can and need to be… Pops