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! 

The opinionated

I wonder what the reaction would be if those who so readily express opinions about the morals and general behaviour of others were asked to express an opinion about themselves? 

 

Their opinion of their own morals and general behaviour? It might make for an interesting conversation I think.

 

But this is what we all tend to do nowadays – from political leaders, newspaper columnists, radio “shock jocks”, TV commentators, and us, lesser mortals – they, we, all express opinions. Everyone has an opinion about something. However (in my opinion!) this is never knowledge based. In any event a “knowledge based opinion” would be an oxymoron, in my opinion!

 

You see if your appearance is different – your skin colour or the shape of your eyes, or you worship God (I believe there is only one) in a different way, or speak a different language from me, or dress in a “funny way”, then, in my “opinion” you are not to be trusted. You might be a rapist, or a criminal, a fraudster, a drug addict – whatever. In my “opinion” that is. Never based on “knowledge”, or verifiable facts, only in my opinion.

 

It has been declared by some (please allow for the hyperbole) that being good (therefore more like me) you are more likely to have blue eyes, a smile with pristine white teeth and blonde hair. Being evil (or different from me) you will have you black hair, red eyes, rotting teeth, and horns!

 

You know as well as I do that this is complete hogwash – that good (and bad) people are everywhere in every society. We are all part of the human “family” – good, bad and indifferent. 

 

So why then do we so freely express our opinion? I have no real idea (opinion?) except to say that (in my opinion) it might be to cause controversy. If I was a politician it might be to please my political “base” to ensure my re-election. Possibly it might be to start a rumour that may increase the value of my shares in a particular company. There is no limit to the range of human ingenuity, particularly when it comes to looking after “me” and preening my ego.

 

Bearing all this in mind and referring back to my original question, I wonder what the reaction would be if someone was asked to express their opinion of themselves?

 

Interesting.

It's a world of partings

It’s a very true saying – that this is “a world of partings”. There is no need to get maudlin about it. It just is what it is. Friends parting; young family members going their separate ways in the world; divorce; then the most confronting parting of all – death.

 

Nothing anyone can do about it. But, as I have written before, no one knows or has the least understanding of the “meaning” of Life (with a capital L) or what happens when some previously living organism is now dead. What happens to the “Life force” that enervated or activated that organism and which is now (apparently) absent? No one has the least idea.

 

Many, many years ago, when I and the world was much younger, I came across a poem that intrigued me without my fully understanding what it meant. Now, after both my marriages ended with the death of my wife and the death of my sibling, parents and many friends I think I, more or less, understand it now (maybe I’m just a slow learner!).

 

In neither situation, regarding my marriages, was I able to do anything. Obviously, one cannot “fight” death!

 

But I’m still intrigued by this poem!

 

The Shadow.

 

The Shadow leaned over me, whispering, in the darkness,

            Thoughts without sound; 

Sorrowful thoughts that filled me with helpless wonder

            And held me bound.

 

Sadder than memory, sharp as remorse, in the quiet

            Before I slept,

The whisper I heard of the one implacable Shadow,

            And my heart wept.

 

“Day by day, in your eyes, the light grows dimmer,

            With the joy you have sung.

You knew it would go; but, ah, when you knew it and 

      sang it,

            Your heart was young;

 

“And a year to you, then, was an age; but now” said

      The Shadow,

            Malignant and cold,

“The light and the colour are fading, the ecstasy dying,

            It is time to grow old.”

 

Oh, I could have borne the worst that he had to tell me,

            Lost youth, age, death;

But he turned to breathe on the quiet heart sleeping 

     beside me

            The same cold breath.

 

And there by the throat I grappled him. “Let me bear

     all of it.

            Let her dream on.”

Soundlessly, shadow with shadow, we wrestled together,

            Till the grey dawn.

 

                                                            Alfred Noyes.

Time is always there.

This is something that is with us always. Time! But what is it? It slows the closer we get to the speed of light. Apparently space travellers age less during the "time" they are travelling at hundreds of thousands of kilometres per hour than when they are back on earth.

 

But its my perception of time that interests me, punctuated as it has been, by major events – deaths, births, accidents, travel – all quite normal for anyone who lives long enough. It’s the "switch" that intrigues me. One moment I can be listening to world news and in the next some word, thought, scent, photograph or sound will send me back, right back, even to my childhood.

 

I know, full well, that the passage of time dulls memories – that’s just life I suppose. Strangely though some are still very sharp and vivid. I can still remember my first day at "kindy" – in Durban, at St Thomas Church hall and Mrs Dibbs the teacher.

 

Then of course and more importantly in my current situation, on my own, in a house that I shared with Magucha there are many memories. She is never far away. I will admit, in the more than five years that have passed since I held her hand and watched her die I can still, in an instant, seemingly switch from that to an incident in our life together in (then) Rhodesia. Then in a split second later I can be back here, now, listening to music.

 

So time, it seems, is a "flexible" measure of life. It slows down or speeds up according to our mood and circumstances. It most definitely speeds up, or seems to, as one grows older – the days, weeks, months and years roll by with apparently increasing velocity.

 

There are, however, some things that time will never touch. Memories. Not necessarily little individual memories but broad brush remembrances – Magucha’s kindness, her generosity of spirit, her inherent sense of justice, her mischievous sense of humour but above all her astonishing courage. And then her eyes. They are what attracted me when I first saw her – their liveliness, their warmth and intensity. 

 

These will always have a place in my heart.  

 

I’ve looked long and hard for a poem that even comes close to expressing what I feel about time.  This one by Paul Dunbar, the first African American to achieve recognition in the literary world, comes close:-

 

Forever

Paul Laurence Dunbar - 1872-1906

 

I had not known before

    Forever was so long a word.

The slow stroke of the clock of time

    I had not heard.

 

‘Tis hard to learn so late;

    It seems no sad heart really learns,

But hopes and trusts and doubts and fears,

    And bleeds and burns.

 

The night is not all dark,

    Nor is the day all it seems,

But each may bring me this relief--

    My dreams and dreams.

 

I had not known before

    That Never was so sad a word,

So wrap me in forgetfulness--

     I have not heard.

 

Blindness is not just lack of eyesight.

I wonder if anyone recalls the tale, by H G Wells, about a mountaineer who finds himself in a hidden valley where all the inhabitants inherited a disease that causes all new babies to be born blind. Now after several generations everyone is blind. 

When this mountaineer arrives and tries to explain what sight means no one believes him. He realises that his sight gives him an advantage over the community and attempts to take control. He gets angry when the populace ignore his ideas. In fact they resent it and accuse him of having dangerous ideas and an unhealthy "obsession about sight" and a doctor suggests they remove his eyes that "are greatly distended".

Before this happens he manages to escape and climb his way back out of the valley. 

But I wonder if the moral of the story (as I understand it) - that blindness is not just physical but a mental shortcoming as well; that those who don’t see the world as you do must be guilty of an obsessions or accepting "fake news" as the truth, can be accepted today?

Similarly those with disabilities, real or imagined, are usually considered "inferior" and not worthy to live in the community. 

This seems to be quite a common refrain and not just in the social media "world" but in the political and business spheres as well. 

Pity - but the old saying " there are none so blind as those who will not see" still holds true. Unfortunately. 

Just memories.

There are so many memories. But they are mine and wouldn’t have the same resonance if I tried to share very many, I don’t believe. 

 

You see, tomorrow, January 21, will be five years since Magucha died. Now it never has been my intention to solemnize this day into a “mourning” day.  Magucha would never have wanted that. It is after all just another day – the sun will still rise in the East and set Westward over the Indian Ocean (viewed from Perth).

 

Tomorrow will, in a sense, be a day of celebration for a life well lived. Magucha refused to be cast down. Her whole approach to life seemed to be “Life is to be lived. Live it. To the full!” And so she did. She was never still, just like a sparrow – my pet name for her was “pardalito” – Portuguese for “little sparrow”  – always busy with something or someone. 

 

Rather than adopt an attitude, “What can I expect from Life?” Magucha approached it differently with a, “What does Life expect from me?” So she was always up to something – more often than not helping some wayfarer who has stumbled on their journey through life. 

 

And I was glad to be part of that. And I respected her, almost unconscious, desire to help others. And I hope I helped too. I loved her, you see! 

 

But in retrospect one always remembers the better times – the many rushed journeys to hospital and the many days spent in hospital, just became part of the background and tend to recede further as time goes on. Just as does the fist full of medications she had to take twice a day – I still have her hospital pharmacy list.

 

Magucha was  tough. Ever since her late teenage years she had suffered from kidney failure – she died just short of 63 years old – so nearly 50 years of illness. This she endured with stoic fortitude, never complaining, always ready for tomorrow! She was like spring steel – always bouncing back with a smile and a thank you.

 

In many respects I think that what the American rebel and “Gonzo” journalist, Hunter S Thompson, wrote gives a good insight into Magucha’s whole approach to life:-

 

“ Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow! What a Ride!”

 

And it was a ride – being her partner, lover and friend! I wouldn’t have missed any of it. But it is the memory of her gentle side that I remember so fondly. She loved children. Having been told not to have a child - that having a child of her own would overload her compromised kidneys, she was so proud to give birth to a healthy little girl. Her love for Caroline was palpable and wonderful to see. 

 

Being the person she was she gave equal loving attention to Rob whom she refused to call “step son” but always “MY son Rob”. And I loved her for that – her innate kindness and sense of justice.

Then when the grandchildren arrived she was always there to offer help. She was their beloved “Vovo” (Portuguese for grandmother).

 

So, as you can see there are so many memories.

 

As the anonymous poet Atticus wrote:-

 

“What a beautiful thought” she said,

“that even death does not conquer love and sometimes even makes it stronger.”

 

And:-

 

“She had an uncanny energy for life, 

thankful for every little miracle it bestowed –

and it made her entirely impossible to live without.”

 

I know I have used this poem before but it fits my mood so I’ll end with it:-

 

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. 

             

                            Robert Louis Stevenson