The Graceful Exit

Writing in “The Marvelous Land of Oz,” L. Frank Baum said, “Everything has to come to an end, sometime.” This year, the ‘sometime’ has all too often been sooner rather than later. The Ashland University women’s basketball season ended on the brink of an undefeated year, the 2019-20 school year bit the dust in March, and the Tribe didn’t even make it out of spring training. How I miss “Tito” and Indians baseball. Will we possibly hear the crack of the bat and the iconic “play ball” at the corner of Carnegie and West 9^thStreet before the summer of 2020 ends? Hope springs eternal.

We live in a world filled with endings of all kinds. To the dismay of many Ashlanders, Belly Busters closed their doors this week. I remember their first Ashland location, in the tiny building on Main Street just around the corner from our Walnut Street house. Could an authentic BBQ restaurant find a home in Ashland, Ohio? After twelve years of delicious food, thousands of Facebook fans, and their huge hearts (400+ Thanksgiving dinners in 2019), the answer was “yes.” Linda and Will Anderson attempted to sell the restaurant last year without success, and the COVID-19 restrictions gave a final nudge to their decision to close. As Linda and Will grudgingly admit, “we are getting older.” Ashland will definitely miss their “all you can eat” Friday fish fry, ribs, pulled pork, and – my favorite – Linda’s German chocolate cake.

Their decision came just weeks after Bella Bleu’s announced they were not going to reopen for business. Rita Edwards had created wonderful food off the beaten track in an idyllic space at the water’s edge in Ashland. But like many other small business owners across the county and the country, there wasn’t enough of a cushion to sustain operations through the corona-tinged spring of 2020. 

An ending of retirement has come as well for former Ashland resident Rev. Janet Chilcote, who pastored Paradise Hill United Methodist Church for a number of years while her husband taught at Ashland Theological Seminary. In a tribute to his wife, Paul writes: “I simply want to say that Janet ‘gets it.’ Her life has always been characterized by selfless, humble love, every day that I’ve had the honor to be her partner in life. She taught me very early the art of the ‘win-win’ and has always sought reconciliation and peace in every difficult situation she has ever encountered.” This may be the ending of full-time ministry for Janet, but her selfless, humble love as seen in the roots of ACCESS, and her ministry at Hospice and Paradise Hill, will bear fruit in Ashland county and around the world for years to come. 

Baum stated the obvious when he wrote of the necessity of endings, but their inevitability doesn’t take away the sting of loss. As spectators at a stadium or arena, occasional patrons at a restaurant, or parishioners in the pew, we may experience a pinch of sadness, but we will soon transfer our loyalty to other athletes, restaurants, and pastors. Yet the loss felt by those fully invested in the teams, the businesses and the pastorates runs deeper, and we lament with them in their sorrow and disappointment.

In these days, when loss struggles to find a rhythm in the shadow of pandemic, Ellen Goodman’s advice brings encouragement . “There’s a trick to the ‘graceful exit.’ It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over – and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” 

One of the losses to Pandemic 2020 was Ashland’s BalloonFest. Yet symbolic of Goodman’s “sense of future,” we may just be able to catch a glimpse of color soaring overhead if we look to the sky tonight and Sunday morning. Somewhere, you see, over the rainbow, dreams that we dare to dream, even if reimagined a dozen times, really do come true.