More and more frequently of late, I find myself wondering why I am still here, when my life seems to have so little purpose now: there are no children dependent upon me, my years of meaningful work and joyous travels are in my rear-view mirror, and so many of my friends are gone. Even this blog, which I do enjoy writing, has only a few loyal readers.

It’s an age thing, and there is no cure.

But then something will happen to remind me that there is a reason for everything, although it may not be given us to understand it.

Today is the third “No Kings Day” in America. Millions of proud citizens are gathering peaceably to oppose the autocratic regime of Donald Trump, and to demand that our democracy be preserved and our Constitution obeyed. Sadly, I am physically unable to join them, though I am with them in spirit.

This morning, as I was thinking about how, in my younger days, I would have been right out there with those protesters, I stumbled upon a beloved old verse by the celebrated American poet Robert Frost, and that little light bulb in my head switched on.

As I read, for perhaps the hundredth time, those immortal last lines, I remembered that I do indeed have a reason for lingering on this “mortal coil,” as another poet (Shakespeare) called it: to keep writing, sending my verbal support out there for even a handful of readers, joining the marchers and fighting for our freedom in the only way left to me: with my words. And not only for my fellow Americans, but for oppressed people throughout the world.

The lines that spoke so clearly to me this morning are these:

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

– Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”

So I’m still here, keeping my promise to continue the fight for whatever time may be left to me, and hoping that a few more people will join me.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
3/28/26