The Frailty Of Life, And The Certainty Of It
Quoting from Home (2008) by Marilynne Robinson:
“Every Sunday when the boys were home her father would stand at the front of the church, waiting for the pews to fill. Her brothers would file in, three of them, and her father would wait a moment more, watching the doorway, glancing up at the balcony. Then his head would fall to one side, regret and forgiveness in one gesture. Sometimes, rarely, he would nod to himself and smile, and then they knew that Jack was there, and that the sermon would be about joy and the goodness of God no matter what the text was. She had never heard her father say such hard words – the cruelty of it! the arrogance! – and she had never seen him brood and mutter for days at a time, as if he were absorbing the fact that some transgressions are beyond a mere mortal’s capacity to forgive. How often those same hard, necessary words had come to her mind.”
A distant uncle of mine just passed away a few days ago.
But what’s making me sad or feeling sorry is not the death of this uncle of mine (after all, I met him, perhaps, twice in my life?), but rather, the death of those lives that have lived through so much, and died countless times as a result.
What really makes death so depressing, and so regretful? It is that these old souls, who have lived through decades, slogging their lives, offering their hearts, buffeting their bodies and minds for the aspirations and expectations of oneself, and of others, end up in opulently embellished graves, still carrying names known for their ordinary legacies, that constantly sought to make a difference. The notion of failure, and the regret and guilt burdening the tired shoulders of these courageous men and women who chose (or were forced) to keep living their lives in the most noble and gratifying form amidst the normalcy that makes life a life after all, is in itself plagued with bitterness and a pain rendered by a cruel and unforgiving sense of non-fulfilment.
Trying is a tiresome affair. A risky investment that never guarantees a fruitful return. Yet these old souls kept going, and kept failing.
The unspoken and unspeakable sadness that garners no interest in the audience, no matter how mighty a listening ear might be, makes these failures a maggot on the constantly strengthening minds of these heroes. Where they get the strength, I have no idea.
A heart kept pumping and pumping, till one day it grew tired, and finally came to a halt, and it was over.
“Sometimes the strongest people in the morning are the ones who cry themselves to sleep at night.”
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.”
Mr Boughton (the pastor in Home) regretted, and yet forgived. He forgave the prodigal son, Jack, who constantly stabbed his father’s already scarred heart, still bleeding and still healing from the wounds of the past. Is this not cruelty to put a dying old man through such pain, galvanised by a façade of hope and peace that the frail elder has been clinging on, wishing one day, just once, that his wish would come true? And is it not cruelty to make this man perform the divine act of forgiveness? He was, in several staccatos of his life, a relatively satisfied man, dragged down by disappointment, spiritual condemnation, and his very own dreams and desires.
It is no wonder why my uncle simply could not let go of the fact of dying at a mere 53 years of age. He was saddened by his dreams and desires, and saddened by the pain of non-fulfilment. And saddened, by the fact that his dreams and desires would never completely become reality, and the pain of non-fulfilment would never morph into the joy of satisfaction. And saddened ever more, because he keeps trying.
A belated Happy New Year peeps! You are now a year older.
I thank God that death is not the final rite of passage, and I have a place in Heaven. And Heaven, given its nomenclature, means nothing of this all. I am still a happy boy. Would you be happy?
“A caterpillar thought the world was going to end till it realised it became a butterfly.”
