I’ve heard that it was an old nautical tradition that when a boat sailed across the Atlantic, the passengers would spend the first half of the voyage raising their glasses to friends astern—to the ones who had seen them off and bid them a fond farewell. “A toast to those we have left behind.”
But as the ship continued to progress across the ocean, the captain would eventually announce they had come to the halfway point of their journey. At this time, the passengers would adopt a new custom. Instead of raising their glasses to friends astern, they would raise their glasses to friends ahead, to those who were waiting for them on the far shore. “A toast to those who await us.” At the halfway point of their journey they would stop looking backward and begin looking forward.
This is a meaningful tradition and a poignant one, for it captures a reality of life in this world. When we are young, we think only of the friends we know, for the great majority of them are still with us. It is friends among us who capture our attention. And rightly so, for we are still in the very bloom of life.
But as time progresses and we make our way through the middle years, we can’t help but begin to think about friends ahead, for by this time we have lost so many of them. Companions we once counted dear have already lived and died. People we once looked up to have been laid in the grave. Our parents have preceded us across that vast gulf and maybe even our children. Soon it seems like more have gone than have remained, that more of our heart is in heaven than on earth.
What a blessing it is to know that even with the reality of so much loss, we are never without hope and never without comfort. Passengers crossing the Atlantic began to toast friends ahead because they anticipated arriving on the shores of the New World and being greeted there by friends who had made the journey before them. The longer their journey continued, the greater their longing and the greater their restless anticipation.
And so it is with us. As we live, we long. Though until our dying day, we will have people to love and duties to perform, we can serve with confidence, knowing that the friends who have been steadily crossing before us are gathering on the far shore to await our arrival. We can express love with joy as we await the great reunion to come. We can begin to turn our hearts from friends astern to friends ahead as we anticipate the greatest of days and the endless blessings to come.
