I am watching my friend die.

For the moment he has the ability to converse deliberately and sensitively. His brain, though, has shut down the functions which would allow him to read, or to write, or to use the keyboard on his computer, or select the right buttons on his phone.

He is mobile and although his memory is becoming less reliable, his church has asked him to continue to preach (preparation is minimal, apart from a life of ministry).

As a pastor, I have often sat with a soul whose days are very limited, and have subsequently conducted a service to honour and remember their life. As I reflect on all those precious moments, and of the many Christian friends it has been my privilege to know, Peter has the most intimate and conversational relationship with the Father of anyone I have met.

As the news declares that in this world nearly half a million have died from the Covid19 virus, deaths often swift and brutal, Peter has been granted the opportunity to walk this final path with a measure of awareness, and what I would call Divine companionship.

I expect in a little while, those things he can now do, he will no longer be able to do. For now, he can still laugh, and encourage, and plan, and counsel, and apparently preach.

The following poem is a favourite of mine, not as far as I know with any reference to a soul who has chosen to follow the path God has laid out, but I read it and adopt it as a parable…

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth

 Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as far as that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

I took the one less travelled by

And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost