Sometimes.

Sometimes I may read or hear something and some passage I turn to or listen to will trigger a memory. It may be a memory of some time far back in my youth when still in Durban or, frequently nowadays, a more recent event of my life with Magucha. 

These are not always sad – often quite funny memories, recalling something relating to Magucha’s quirky sense of humour. But dates of celebration – birthdays, anniversaries – always bring some poignant remembrances. And what would have been her 68^th birthday is coming up soon – 9^th May, also as it happens, Mother’s Day this year.

I know that Magucha was no saint but with all the energy generated in her small body she seemed to shed a kindly light, like a glow. I truly believe that most people who came in contact with her benefited in some way. She was that kind of person.

Likewise I know the old saying that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and after over five years of Magucha’s "absence" maybe that is true - that I now gloss over her all too human frailties. 

But I loved her you see and it has been said that love is blind. Maybe it is. Because I’m sure she ignored or at least learned to live with my, again, all too human frailties! 

As always I turn to poetry to express what I feel. I’ve said it many times before that poets seem to find the words that pierce the heart – certainly my heart. I miss so many aspects of our 36 years together. Little things, like what she referred to as her "pata" (Portuguese for paw), her little hand in mine as we walked or resting on my knee when I was driving. Just that simple close contact. I have now lost the sounds of both her voice and her infectious laugh – they have gone. But I can still see her eyes when I look at one of the many photographs I have of her. It was her eyes that attracted me when I first saw her. What attracts is indescribable – it just "is".

Quite a while back I came across this poem, from an anonymous composer, and it certainly resonated with me – it seemed to be very true. At least sometimes!

I heard your voice in the wind today.

I heard your voice in the wind today

And I turned to see your face;

The warmth of the wind caressed me

As I stood silently in place.

 

I felt your touch in the sun today

As its warmth filled the sky;

I closed my eyes for your embrace

And my spirit soared high.

 

I saw your eyes in the window pane

As I watched the falling rain;

It seemed as each raindrop fell

It quietly said your name.

 

I held you close in my heart today

It made me feel complete;

You may have died … but you are not gone

You will always be a part of me.

 

As long as the sun shines….

The wind blows ….

The rain falls ….

You will live on inside of me forever

For that is all my heart knows.

 

                                    Unknown  

 

The Fates

This has always fascinated me – the seeming “randomness” of our life span. Some people live to a ripe old age, while others barely survive birth and some don’t even get that far, much to the grief of the expectant mother. 

 

What started it all? Every effect has a cause. But what? And why? That we can never know – which is why I’m attracted to the Ancient Greek idea of the Fates. Those mysterious "forces" which the Greeks portrayed as three women. Each of the three Fates had a different task, revealed by her name: Clotho spun the thread of life, Lachesis measured its allotted length, and Atropos cut the thread with her shears. 

 

But what determines our “allotted length” of life? I suspect that Hubris and Nemesis play a part but then, maybe so does the Eastern idea of Karma. Karma – the concept that we carry forward our deeds, good or bad, into our next manifestation of life. 

 

To me that is only fair.  We reap what we sow. 

 

Two “quatrains” from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam emphasise our impotence:-

 

49

‘Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the Closet lays.

 

50

The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes,

But Right or Left, as strikes the Player goes;

And He that toss’d Thee down into the Field,

He knows about it all – He knows – HE knows!

 

 

As a reminder – Hubris, to the ancient Greeks, is when a human, with over weening arrogance and pride, tries to alter the course of events and by so doing encroaches on the realm of the Gods. Something not  to be recommended!

 

Hubris always invited the arrival of Nemesis – the female Goddess of retribution – implacable in her task of tracking every wrong back to its doer and dispensing justice commensurate with the wrong committed. Nemesis was generally portrayed holding the Scales of Justice on one hand and a sword or dagger in the other.  

 

But all this brings me back to where I started, that, to me, fascinating and totally unknowable concept of Life (with a capital L) and what determines its span or length of time? 

 

And I have absolutely no idea!