Left or Right?

Years ago my father posed the question, “If one day something happened to make me turn left to go to work instead of my usual turning right – what would happen? Who would I meet? What new course would my life take?”

I’ve always remembered him saying this and have always wondered what events would unfold on the “Road less travelled”.

This is of course the ultimate hypothetical question. There can never be a definitive answer – anything could happen and there is no way of knowing if the same event would have taken place, regardless; that Fate has determined that whatever happens had to happen. 

Quatrain 51 (From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

This notion of Fate or the Fates, the Moirai in Greek mythology, the three sister Goddesses, incarnations of destiny and life has always fascinated me. There is Clotho, the one who spins the thread of life; Lachesis, the one who draws lots to determine how long one lives, by measuring the thread of life; and Atropos, the inevitable, is the one who chooses the moment and method of death by cutting the thread of life with her shears. 

Now this, death, happens and will happen to us all however we might try and avoid the subject. So I ask the question – would it not be better to prepare ourselves for this inevitable end by living as best we can, by our lights? But it is so hard to accept death, particularly when it affects someone close, someone one loves. I know it is pointless to ask the question -Why? There is no answer. It just is – the Fates have made their determination.

But it is very hard.There is a poem, a tragic poem, which expresses this in words that I totally understand but with feelings almost beyond my comprehension. But, Oh the pathos!

Were You But Here!

Were you but here!

No more with tears the dreadful Night

Would in my soul her sorrows pour;

And through the curtained door

The groaning of the Earth

I’d hear no more;

Were you but here.

Were you but here!

O, high in Heaven the pulsing stars,

Your gracious way to greet,

Would scatter all their jewelled dust

In joyance at your feet,

And through the shadows, soft and low,

The happy laughter of the Wind would go;

Were you but here!

                                    Eugene Marais (9 January 1871 – 29 March 1936)

Probably written after the death (in South Africa) of his wife in 1895. She died from puerperal fever (eight days after the birth of their son) and after just one year of marriage.

Marais, trained in Law, was a well-known naturalist, poet and writer who was best known for his seminal works published as “The Soul of the white ant” and “The Soul of Ape”. Because he wrote initially in Afrikaans his works were not widely read outside South Africa and also because of this, unfortunately, were heavily plagiarised - stolen - by American and European naturalists in their own published research.

He never fully recovered from these hammer blows dealt him and finally committed suicide.

The Fates indeed – Left or Right – who knows!

I know that I nearly wept when I first read this poem, shortly after the death of my wife, Magucha.