Scared of the Rooms: Reflection on the New Year

I walked in a city I hadn’t before,
It was called “Earth”, and the people were more
Than all who had at ever in one city dwelt,
For these lived at the gates of Heaven and Hell.

Each person here had limited time
Before they crossed the river to the far side,
Many were old, some were young, some between,
But all had one thing in Earth not yet seen:

Each one had a house with a series of rooms,
Each room was a year of their life they lived through,
Some had a few rooms, some many, some large,
Each full of the things their life was made of.

I had just arrived on the street where my home
Stood side by side with the others, not known
By any who wanted to come to this place,
For who wants to come early to the end of their race?

I was scared to open the door to my home,
And so I stood in the street, I thought quite alone,
But few minutes had passed before I felt a hand.
I looked up and there smiling stood an old man.

“Hello, friend,” he said, “I see you’ve arrived,
Now we’re both close to seeing how looks the far side.
Have you been in your rooms yet?” And I shook my head.
“Would it give you courage to see mine first instead?”

I nodded, and he gave a kind, knowing smile.
“Like you, I stood outside my home a while,
I was worried to see how my rooms would each be,
For if each room is a year, what in each would I see?”

He kept his hand on my shoulder and gestured next door.
“They all held things I’d, of course, seen before,
And some things were good, but then once again,
Some were there I wished never to see there again.

“But now,” he said, with his kindly smile,
“It can do good to look at your rooms for a while,
To see all the years, and how with each your room changed,
To see how you leave one, and you’re never the same.”

He opened the door and to the first room he led,
It was small and simple. “I was born here,” he said.
“My first breaths, my first screams, my first smiles and tears,
Were all in this room where I lived my first year.”

A couple rooms down, room three, was still small,
“But large it felt to me then, and quite tall,”
The man said and he touched the pencil marked floors,
“Children dream, but don’t know what life has in store.”

“This is the school room, it marks my year four,
From here I began my path to learn more,
I faced the world with a childish grin,
And between these walls I welcomed life in.”

The old man led me from room to next room,
And gave a few words for what each year had been through,
There was the room he played marbles that marked his year eight,
And room number nine where his friendships were made.

“And as the years passed, my rooms passed me by too,
The child grew small as the grown-up grew too,
More laughter, more joy, more sorrow, more tears,
Did I face and conquer that decade of years.”

In the twelfth room that marked his twelfth year it began
To show signs of struggle and fear once again,
But still on the walls, in the timber it showed,
That strength hadn’t left in that year’s abode.

In sixteen it showed his first love and then,
In seventeen his heart broke and again,
These years showed more signs of struggle and war,
Feelings felt that had come never before.

But when eighteen came, the room that turned
Was not like a one I had seen before,
For in the bed, it was not him that slept,
But in that room kneeling beside another he wept.

“My brother,” the man said. “This room marks that year,
That my brother left us on that pillow there.
He was younger than me, so you see, I had thought,
I was always supposed to go first in my lot.

“After this, you’ll find every room a bit changed,
To look a little like this one, though none are the same,
For you see,” he said, wiping his eye,
“I thought I would never leave this room behind.

“Though never again did I want to see,
The room that lived most in my memory,
The room that changed all others after,
And made me think twas a lie: that after tears, laughter,

“And though a new room in nineteen I slept,
Though it held my body, my mind this room kept,
And though I wanted to leave it all behind,
I was scared that to do so would leave brother mine.

“When I turned twenty there came a new year,
And with that a new room, new strength, and new fear,
And with every moment that passed me on by,
The room I ne’er wanted seemed further to fly.

“I was scared of leaving the room of eighteen,
That I’d leave the memories there that I once had seen,
That though I hated them, they showed me my love,
Regret, joy, and always the one I thought of.

“And so as much as I wanted to leave that room,
I was angry at Time, that I must change too,
That I must leave that room each day further behind,
Where I said my goodbyes and first began to curse time.

“But you see here?” The man said, and looked down the hall,
“I had more rooms to live in, many to fall
Into the past, and to pass the baton
Into the room the next year would live on.

“This is the room I met the love of my life,
And in this room we wed and I made her my wife,
The next room over I was given a child,
So you see, through the tears, still yet would come smiles.

“This room marks the year I was obsessed with my job,
And this room all the ways to my wife I made up,
This room here I missed my brother again,
And cried tears I thought I had spent once again.

“This room my daughter went also to school,
And in this room I found my children grew too.
In this room I gave her away to the man,
That came to ask me, as I once asked for a hand.”

The hall seemed at times endless, at others quite small,
Depending on the size of the room he did call,
But as we got nearer and nearer the end,
The man’s steps, not slower, but quicker began.

“I haven’t yet seen the last room,” he said with a smile,
“But I believe I’ll be called there in quite a short while,
It’s the one in which I’ll say goodbye to this Earth,
And goodbye to these rooms, that began with the first.

“I grieve last goodbyes, yes, but I plan next hellos,
When God calls me from this house here down below,
And I change rooms again – but this one I’ll keep,
And the joy in His house, forever will be.

“Until then,” the man said, “I will live to the end
Of all of these rooms my life made, and my Friend,
We will be neighbors forever, once we are called
So let’s go to your house and see what your rooms are made of.”