Beyond the Bucket List

A Second Life

Let’s go back to Labor Day weekend, 2005. I was forty-four, hadn’t had a drink in four months, and was wrapping up a consulting job with a ten-day solo vacation through the desert Southwest. 

For the first time in forever, I was imagining life without drinking, and feeling good about it. But when I returned home, reality would be waiting. I needed a job. There wasn’t much money in my checking account. My kids didn’t really want to spend time with me. And I had nothing saved for retirement. 

The future, as they say, wasn’t bright.

Thanks to my overlooking the fact it was Labor Day weekend, and I hadn't made hotel reservations, I found myself in a perfectly clean room that was no longer being rented, in a very, very old motel overlooking the Animas River in Durango, Colorado. Through the generosity of two people who took pity on my situation, I had a safe place to stay for the weekend.

The room had seen far better days - and so had I. For ten or fifteen minutes, I debated my future. Should I stay sober and work on making the second half of my life extraordinary? Or was it a lost cause? Should I just walk across the street to the package store, buy a bottle of bourbon, and get hosed? Nobody but me would ever know.

Fairly confident in my decision, I walked past the package store and kept going until I reached a green space beside the river. The water glistened like diamonds in the afternoon sun. 

I did this for me. 

A few minutes later, the Durango & Silverton train rolled by, with dozens of little kids waving at me. I waved back, tears streaming down my face. 

Life could not have been better than it was at that moment. I knew then that I was done with alcohol. My second life had begun. 

Learning to live again was unimaginably difficult. I was middle-aged, living in my parents’ basement, with strained relationships and an uncertain professional future. 

Still, I was determined to make a go of it. 

Over time, I began to understand that comparing myself with friends and contemporaries served no purpose. It didn’t matter what they’d accomplished or how much they’d saved. I couldn’t change the past. I had to accept where I was and make the most of the life ahead of me. 

Sobriety was the foundation. Everything else would require patience, humility, hard work, and the willingness of those I’d hurt to give me another chance. 

Nowhere was that more important than with my ex-wife, Alyson. 

I’d given her plenty of reasons to doubt me. If there was going to be a future for us, she’d have to see that the changes were real and lasting. 

The first meaningful time we spent together after my last drink was Christmas morning, when I’d been sober for almost eight months. She invited me to be there when the children woke to see what Santa had brought. I think she was pleasantly surprised by how well it went. The children were delighted to have their family together again, if only for a few hours. 

Little by little, we began finding our way back to one another. 

Shortly before my father died following a brief illness, we talked about the things that truly matter. He told me he was happy and content with the life he’d lived, and hoped that someday I could say the same. 

I asked him what had made that possible. 

“God and family,” he replied. “I’ve loved them both, and they’ve loved me.” 

He passed away three days later, knowing I’d been sober for nearly two years, that Alyson and I might someday remarry, and that we were attending Mass every Sunday. All of this brought him immense joy. 

Alyson and I eventually remarried, and I found my footing in a new career. My former boss, who had graciously given me a second chance, had moved to another company. True to his word, he never shared my past with anyone there. For the next seventeen years, I earned a good living and gradually rebuilt the retirement savings I’d thought were beyond my reach. 

More importantly, my family forgave me. Alyson, in particular, gave me a gift I can never fully repay. That doesn’t mean she’s forgotten, or that the children have. But she chose not to let my past define our future. 

I’ve never taken that for granted. 

A Really, Really Big Boat 

A few years after we remarried, we welcomed my mother into our home. She lived with us for seven years, ultimately passing away in her own bed, just as she’d hoped. 

After her death, we moved to a new town and a new home. Before long, we opened our doors again, this time to Alyson’s parents, who were then in their late seventies. 

Welcoming our parents into our home—first my mother, then her parents—was among the best decisions we ever made. 

For fifteen years of our marriage, we lived in a multigenerational household. There were compromises, adjustments, and times when privacy was in short supply. But we shared everyday life with our parents, creating memories that occasional visits never could. 

If there was one downside, it was that Alyson and I rarely vacationed by ourselves. Apart from our honeymoon, our trips had always included children, parents, or both. 

So we planned an Alaska cruise followed by a week exploring Denali, a belated anniversary gift to ourselves. We booked it for the spring of 2020. 

When we told Jean, Alyson’s mother, she wondered whether she and Charles might come along. They could book their own cabin. After all, it was a big ship. We’d hardly have to see them. 

I was torn. We’d been looking forward to a vacation for two. On the other hand, I’d have given anything to spend a week cruising Alaska with my own parents, both of whom were long gone. 

Jean and Charles were added to the itinerary almost immediately. 

A few days later, Jean (or maybe it was Alyson) had another idea. Why not invite Alyson’s siblings and their spouses? Charles wasn’t getting any younger. This might be their last chance for a family vacation together. 

Alyson and I talked it over. 

It was supposed to be our trip. 

But it was a big boat. 

A really, really big boat. 

There would be other opportunities for the two of us. There might not be another for all of us. 

So we invited everyone, including our youngest son. Our vacation for two had become a family adventure. 

Then COVID arrived. The cruise was postponed, then canceled altogether. 

We would eventually make it to Alaska, though first there was another journey.

After a close friend died from complications of alcoholism, I decided to share my own story online in the hope that it might help someone else. I spent weeks writing and refining it before I uploaded it to the web.

One evening, I mentioned the website to Alyson, but apparently it hadn’t registered. She never commented, and I didn’t bring it up again. 

Months later, we were lying in bed when I realized she was quietly crying. I rolled over and asked if I’d said or done something wrong. 

She showed me what she was reading...

Somehow, she’d stumbled across the website I'd created. The one I'd mentioned months earlier.  

It was the first time she’d read it. All those months, I’d wondered why she hadn’t commented. She simply hadn’t known it existed. 

Through her tears, she whispered, “This is just beautiful. I had no idea… I’m so sorry…” 

We talked about parts of my journey she hadn’t known about. Then we talked about the friend whose death had prompted me to write: her best friend since kindergarten. She’d hidden her drinking for years. By the time Alyson and others understood what was happening, the damage had been done. She had died earlier that year. 

That Christmas, Alyson gave us a trip to the desert Southwest, including a ride on the Durango & Silverton Railroad. We waited until fall, returning almost exactly seventeen years after that afternoon beside the Animas River. 

The trip remains one of the highlights of my life. Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and the Petrified Forest were magnificent. But what made it unforgettable was knowing that Alyson understood what returning to Durango would mean to me, and wanted us to experience it together.

It was our first real vacation alone since our honeymoon. The meaning behind that gift, and the memories we made, are worth more to me than anything she could have wrapped and put under a tree. 

The following June, in 2023, we finally made it to Alaska. Alyson and Jean had managed to put the whole family trip back together.

By then, Charles’s health had declined, and he insisted on staying home. Alyson, who is a nurse, wouldn’t hear of it. She found a lightweight wheelchair and assured him there would be plenty of people to help whenever he grew tired. 

He was going. And that was that. 

From the moment our plane lifted off in Atlanta until we returned home, Charles enjoyed every minute. So did the rest of us. The Inside Passage was magnificent, the Anchorage Museum was an amazing delight, Denali was breathtaking, and the GoldStar train ride was spectacular. If you ever have the chance to ride the train and have a little extra room in your budget, I recommend GoldStar Service, which gets you seats in the glass-domed upper cars, among other perks.

A week after we returned home, Charles passed away peacefully in his own bed on the afternoon of his eighty-eighth birthday, surrounded by family. 

Had Alyson and I taken that vacation alone, I’m sure we’d have had a wonderful time. Instead, we shared something extraordinary with her entire family and made memories that will last a lifetime. 

None of us could have known how much that decision would mean. 

Halfway to Heaven

The vacation we’d planned for two became a gift to the whole family. The return to Durango became something Alyson and I could share. A couple of years after Durango, another unexpected opportunity brought us to the place where I now sit watching the clouds. 

Alyson found a Zillow listing for an old log cabin high on a ridge in north Georgia. It promised mountain views at a price we could afford. We drove up the next morning, walked onto the back deck, and fell in love.

There was just one person I worried about: Jean.

We’d promised she could live with us for the rest of her life. I couldn’t imagine she’d want to trade her comfortable mother-in-law suite for a bedroom in an old cabin, farther from friends, doctors, and church, with colder winters to boot. 

I was almost ready to write off the idea before we’d even asked her. 

I couldn’t have been more wrong. 

When we brought her to see it, she said, almost under her breath as we drove down the long, wooded driveway, “I’ve always dreamed of living in the mountains.” 

Before going inside, we took her onto the back deck. 

“I am halfway to HEAVEN!” she exclaimed. 

That sealed the deal. Within a month, we owned the cabin. 

Jean enthusiastically set about making the cabin our home. She loved everything about it, especially the view of Springer Mountain from the deck off her bedroom. That mountain held special memories: she and some of her children and grandchildren had once set out from there, hiking the Appalachian Trail well into North Carolina. One of her daughters continued almost to New York before Lyme disease landed her in the hospital. And right along our property’s edge ran the trail’s old route, from the days when it began at Mount Oglethorpe, before the southern terminus moved to Springer. Jean loved knowing that a piece of that history was right outside her door.

Sadly, she became ill the following summer and passed away after a short illness. But during her final weeks, she left us a legacy I think about often. 

With her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren gathered around a campfire, she shared her diagnosis and asked that no tears be shed for her. She’d lived a spectacular life. She didn’t want to die; there was still so much to see and do. But, it was just as important for us to know and understand was that she was not afraid to die... 

Then she read her reflection, Teach Them to Die. 

What I took from her message was simple: 

• Have a strong faith in God.Trust that He will hold you close. 
• Be grateful. Be kind. Be generous. Live beneath your means. 
• Get outside. Laugh. Don’t take yourself too seriously. 
• Live right up to the very end. 
• When the time comes, trust that God will guide you on the sacred journey.

Although she called it Teach Them to Die, nearly everything she said was about how to live. 

Enjoy Every Opportunity; Remain Curious - Always

Recently, while driving to Washington, D.C., I needed to stop halfway for the night. I could have booked a Hampton Inn beside the interstate, eaten at a chain restaurant, watched television, and continued the next morning. 

Nothing wrong with that. 

Instead, I found an old hotel in a historic district and spent two hours wandering Main Street. I struck up conversations with strangers, met a furniture-store owner of German descent who sold only handmade Amish and Mennonite pieces, and finished with an exceptional country ham dinner in a weathered log cabin built in the 1700s.

I wasn’t checking anything off a list. I wasn’t visiting a famous attraction or doing anything particularly extraordinary by conventional standards. 

I was simply enjoying every opportunity afforded to me. I had an afternoon to myself - I could spend it sitting in a hotel room, or I could spend it exploring a region of the country I'd never seen before, and likely never visit again.

And because I was paying attention and satisfying my curiousity, an otherwise unremarkable overnight stop became a memory I’ll carry for the rest of my life. There’s something wonderful about that. 

I still hope to see Yosemite someday. I’d love to drive Going-to-the-Sun Road through Glacier National Park. But if those journeys never happen, that’s okay. 

There will always be another mountain to see, another small town to explore, another backroad I’ve never traveled. 

I’ve come to realize that the goal isn’t to reach the end of life having done everything I ever wanted to do. That’s probably impossible, especially for someone as curious as I’ve always been. 

The goal, I think, is to reach the end without regretting how I spent the time I was given. 

And if that day were to come tomorrow, I could honestly say I’ve been blessed beyond anything I could ever have imagined. 

Not because I’ve seen everything. 

But because I’ve learned to appreciate what I’ve seen, the people I’ve shared it with, and the extraordinary gift of simply being here. 

Until that day arrives, I intend to keep exploring. 

Whenever possible, taking the backroads...

      ...and remembering how blessed I am.