smile, open your eyes, love and go on

In my last blog I wrote about Cornelian dilemmas and the choices you have to make in life. I also recently wrote about Hubris, extreme pride and arrogance and its opposite Sophrosyne, or the virtue of  healthy-mindedness and from there self-control or moderation. All these are sort of coming together in my mind as I write this rather painful blog.

Ranjan lost his father a week ago and today his mother breathed her last. He is in Calcutta organising his pet project: the SAARC Golf tournament, something he created more than a decade ago. I was so thrilled that his return to his professional new normal was this tournament and prayed to all the Gods of all the Pantheons that it would go well. I was thinking of the humdrum glitches that occur in such events. I could never have imagined that such tragedy would strike. It was traumatic enough for him to perform the last rites of his father just a week back, and now he has to bid a final adieu to his mother. I know he is a strong person but how can I forget that cancer cells have invaded his body, and no matter how brave a front one puts up, the emotional shock of losing both parents in a week is nothing short of devastating. I feel terrified and helpless.

It is difficult for me to write about a relationship I was never truly privy to. Ranjan is a man of few words and is never comfortable talking about himself. I do not know how much time he spent with his parents as a child as he was sent to boarding school at a very early age. I do not know whether he sat on his mother's lap and heard a bedtime story or how many times she soothed his grazed knee. I know very little of him as a child but I am sure that there are some very tender memories that will help him at this difficult time.

I started talking about hubris and sophrosyne and there was a method in my apparent madness. We all at some time or another get swayed by hubris and think we are masters of our lives. We make decisions and choices that we foolishly think are ours. It is not so.

I cannot but remember my father's words. He always use to tell me that not a leave moves without His will and foolish and hubristic me wondered who that Him was! But today as I write these words I am compelled to accept the wisdom of my father. Nothing that happened in the past years, good or bad, was fortuitous. It was all part of the life path that we hide in our closed fist when we enter this world. Do not think I am fatalist though I may be sounding so. I spent the better part of my life as a Cartesian and had my Cassandra moments and my Pollyanna ones. As a true Doubting Thomas I put every experience to test and had my share of ups and downs. But there is one lesson that I was compelled to reject and that was the one that says that hindsight makes you wiser. Hindsight is a chimera. There is no way things could have happened otherwise. You have to take responsibility and move on.

When Ranjan is back home tonight, I will try and soothe him as best I can. I will listen should he want to talk or just share his private silence and respect it. I will conceal my fear for his health and try and stand by him in his hour of sorrow.

It is not hubris we should embrace, but Sophrosyne at least in our twilight years.

This is a poem that has always comforted me in the wake of death:

“You can shed tears that she is gone,
or you can smile because she has lived.
You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her,
or you can be full of the love you shared.
You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday,
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.
You can remember her only that she is gone,
or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.
You can cry and close your mind,
be empty and turn your back.
Or you can do what she'd want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.”
David Harkins