We never seem to learn!

I hadn’t heard this old “protest” song for many years and it brought back memories from my university days. I looked up the lyrics and they struck home. Bob Dylan wrote the lyrics and the song in 1962 at the height of the “Cold War” between the USA and the (then) Soviet Union; the Vietnam War was already seven years old, with no end in sight and the Civil Rights movement in the USA was still in progress and far from resolution (and it’s still going!).

Now I ask the question, “What have we learned since it was first sung about 56 years ago?” 

My answer? Nothing much.

Many people of colour are still not recognised as “people”; in spite of the United Nations best efforts wars are still being fought; human induced climate change is still not widely accepted; many millions of people still aren’t free; many people (in positions of leadership) still pretend they don’t see; too many people are incarcerated unnecessarily; too many people are still dying from mistreatment and abuse. 

Read on.

Blowin' in the Wind

Bob Dylan(1962)

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, 'n' how many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind

Yes, 'n' how many times must a man look up

Before he can see the sky?

Yes ‘n’ how many ears must one man have

Before he can hear people cry?

Yes, ‘n’ how many deaths will it take ‘til he knows

That too many people have died?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Grief

My one loyal reader, Archie, has noted that I have not posted anything for about two months.

I have every reason to have not written anything for so long – I have been grieving. And in my grief I have not been of a mind to write about it or to share the reasons for my grief, or in fact to write anything at all.

In the great scheme of things one more death matters not – the World Health Organization estimates that roughly 155 000 (one hundred and fifty-five thousand) people die every day. So one more is no big deal. But if that one was my wife – then it is a big deal – for me!

When the person who dies is very close – and has been for over 36 (thirty six) years - it is difficult to be rational and to avoid emotion. But in this instance I am trying, trying to let my head attend to reason and to reduce the emotions of my heart (the “traditional” seat of emotions). The trouble is it is so personal, so private that to try and explain how or why I feel the way I do is a hard thing to do.

Writing for me, however, has always been a way out – an escape; in this instance I am using writing for cathartic purposes. I need to let in the light, light to banish the dark thoughts that hover in the background. Putting it all down on “paper”, as it were, helps me to put things in perspective.

To know that a person, close to one, is dying and to know that they know they are dying is quite confronting. To hold someone’s hand and then to feel the life force (whatever this is conceived to be) slowly slip away and the body that was animated and alive grow cold and lifeless, is not easy.

Yet this is what happens roughly 155 000 times every day. There will be, therefore, at least another 155 000 (if not a great deal more) people feeling much as I do. This, also, is confronting; that death and grief are such an “everyday” occurrence that there is still a strange element of surprise and a degree of shock when it happens to someone close.

In some ways this feeling of shock – and grief too I suppose – is, to a degree, a selfish experience. The person concerned, in this case my wife, no longer experiences pain (pain is a warning that the body is in some way compromised). So it is me that is the one affected. Logically therefore, it is me experiencing the emotional shock (which is normal) but also me, to a degree, feeling sorry for myself – I have lost someone. I suppose this is also normal!

To a certain extent I have got over the initial grief and now it is a matter of a “long unwind”; slowly letting go and establishing my own routines to suit only me! Again this is not easy living as I do in the house we shared, sleeping in the same bed we shared, with photographs, with all her little nick-knacks everywhere I look.

I find solace in poetry so I will end this post with a poem that expresses my feelings for my wife very well. A poem by Robert Louis Stevenson called, My Wife:

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The Great Artificer
Made my mate.

Honour, anger, valour, fire;
A love that life could never tire,
Death quench or evil stir,
The Mighty Master
Gave to her.

Teacher, tender, comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life,
Heart-whole and soul-free
The August Father
Gave to me.