TRIAL: Ordeal
“Choices” by Tess Gallagher
Ordeal
The journey is no longer fun. The road is long, there are enemies, and now it’s a whole ordeal. Things go wrong, and there’s all kinds of conflict. It’s decision time. And there we stand, “saw in hand.”
What’s a poet to do?
“Choices” 
Because when it comes to choices, it’s not right vs. wrong, or good vs. bad, but nests vs. mountains. It’s impossible to choose when both options have their merits, and yet choose we must.
I’ve faced that kind of impossible choice a couple of times in my life. One was in 2018, when my dad needed help, so we moved him next door. Caregiving is not my gifting, but give care I did until he passed away. My writing suffered during that time, as did some relationships. It was a nests or mountains kind of choice.
Be a Hero
When we make choices, we don’t know the result. We never know what would have happened if we had chosen the other path. The choosing is itself our ordeal.
I was able to make the choice with my dad because I had made a similar but different hard choice with my mom, several years before. Today is the anniversary of her death in 2010. She did not need my caregiving (she had my dad for that), but she did need my companionship. I didn’t know that the poems I wrote during her final three years would be the seeds for my first book, The Joy of Poetry.
I only know the ordeal was worth the cost.
What does the poem say about your hero’s journey?
If you like, email me at megan.willome@yahoo.com.
I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro
