I've thought sometimes that if life were maybe like the movies, maybe it would be useful to know if something bad was about to happen. Omens. Premonitions. They would maybe help us make better decisions or at least prepare us for the consequences of bad ones.
When I was 11, maybe 12, I read about a Trojan priestess of Apollo's temple. Her name was Cassandra and because she rejected Apollo's sexual advances, he cursed her to see the future but no one will ever believe her. She warned the Trojans not to trust the gift of the Greeks because it will bring destruction to Troy. Of course, they didn't believe her and Troy fell, as she predicted.
Even as a child, I knew the moral of that story is foresight and prophesy were not gifts. I don't want to know the future. I guess that's why I choose to believe in God even though my prayers are, many times, a battle with Him and my doubts of His existence. In the end, weary of my fears of the pandemic present and eaten away by anxiety at what dangers life can bring (choking, slipping, falling) to me and my boys, I give it all up to God so I can sleep and face another day.
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth the living just because He lives
Anyway, I just started reading Joan Didion's
The Year of Magical Thinking. She died last week so I figured I should read up on this famous essayist, considering I'm female, a feminist, and an essayist. I've never read her work, which is a shame and a surprise. It had to take her death for me to read her.
But a few paragraphs in and I had to put the book down. I think I'll read it another day. She was talking about the "ordinary instant."
"It was in fact the ordinary nature of everything preceding the event that prevented me from truly believing it had happened... I recognize now that there was nothing unusual in this: confronted with sudden disaster we all focus on how unremarkable the circumstances were in which the unthinkable occurred."
Didion's book is about the death of her husband and then the grave illness of their only daughter. And when she wrote about the ordinary instant, I knew exactly what she meant. I wrote in my blog post
Of boys and school buses and my breaking heart, "How many of us have the painful privilege of seeing a chapter closing?" Not all of us so maybe when we do feel something is about to end, that can be a good thing.
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| Mama and Papa in happier times. If they had known how unhappy their marriage will be, would they have married still? |
When Papa died, it was such a beautiful day. We were surprised because he had started feeling better, well enough to leave the hospital. But I wasn't really surprised, in hindsight. On the day he went home, we waited for the elevator to bring us down to the basement parking. Papa's nurse was pushing the wheelchair, and he was quiet. Papa told him thanks but he joked, "I hope I never see you again!" And the nurse should've laughed haha. Instead, he gripped Papa's shoulder and just bowed his head, and I knew I knew I knew then and there that Papa was going to die.
But I brushed it away. And a few days later, back in the hospital again, this time with no brain activity, Papa lay in his bed, surrounded by family and friends who laughed, cried, and sang his favorite songs. And I looked out the window at the brilliant blue sky with the dazzling white clouds and thought, "Such a beautiful day to die. You'd never think someone was dying today."
Mama's death came as a surprise, too.
Her death came on a rainy day, the type of day movies say is the day when people die. But it was September, the rainy season, and rain is an ordinary event. My husband and I were in our new home putting up a large print of a woman looking at a cherry blossom tree when my younger brother called, which was not ordinary. Mama was in the hospital, hurry. And I hurried to my closet and thought, "I'll wear the orange dress that she likes so she'll cheer up when she sees me." Choosing what to wear. What an ordinary thing to do on such a horrific day of the most terrible of surprises.
But I wasn't really surprised, in hindsight. That week, at the office, two of my co-workers' mothers died. As my staff and I were having merienda, I said, "They say it comes in threes. Who do you think is next?" And we all shuddered then nervously laughed.
As I went back to my desk, I got this overwhelming feeling of dread and I heard a voice in my head say, "Call your Mama." I wish I made this up because then I wouldn't feel bad (to this day) about shaking off that awful heavy feeling and thinking, "Woah, weird. I'll call her tomorrow after lunch." The next day, after lunch, Mama was dead.
Omens. Premonition. Foresight. A gift or a curse? Maybe both. If only I had listened to that strange voice, I'd have talked to Mama one last time. But there's no use crying over spilled milk. It's done. What matters is learning from the experience.
In
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien wrote, "A divine 'punishment’ is also a divine 'gift’, if accepted, since its object is ultimate blessing, and the supreme inventiveness of the Creator will make 'punishments’ (that is changes of design) produce a good not otherwise to be attained."
In the Christian view, death is the divine punishment for sin. As we are all sinners, we all have to die. So in that sense, no death is ever a surprise. We all know that's where we're all headed. If only life would also grieve with us when the not-actually-unthinkable happens. As that song goes, "Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? I wake up in the morning, and I wonder why everything's the same as it was. I can't understand, no, I can't understand how life goes on the way it does." If only the world acted like death was a punishment, right? But if it did, then we would never see a blue sky with dazzling white clouds again. So perhaps the world knows that death isn't actually completely a bad thing.
In the spirit of Christmas, we know that while we celebrate Jesus's birth, we also know that His ultimate mission was to die on the cross for our sins. I don't know how the wise men knew that because they gave him myrrh, an embalming oil, as a gift. A very alarming gift to give to a baby, right? And of course, Jesus knew His earthly end and so the Bible describes Him as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). And yet because He also knew that His death will bring all who love Him eternal life, Jesus was also happy. And He wanted to share His joy! "I have told you this that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11). It's one of my most favorite verses and reminds me all the time to have joy despite all of life's tragedies.
Jesus the man knew His terrible future and yet He treated it as a gift because He devoted His numbered days to serving God and His will. He made His life count.
Our inevitable death is a divine punishment. But if there's anything the deaths of my loved ones have taught me, it is this: Death is also a divine gift. We have to choose to see it that way, however, for it to "produce a good not otherwise to be attained" by a happy, carefree life.
And this is something I don't say aloud because it sounds terrible but if my mother had still been alive today, my life would not be this amazing at all. Her death made me softer, kinder, more compassionate, and humble. It was the one thing that made me hold on to God with all my might. Before she died, I relied on myself and myself alone. I was fine on my own and I didn't need God for anything. But there's nothing like your mother's death to shatter your heart and your bones. So if Mama hadn't died, I truly believe I'd not have been a good mother. I don't even think I'd be a good person. So the best thing that happened to me and my children, possibly, is Mama's death, which is also the very worst thing that happened to me.
A divine punishment, a divine gift.
That said, I still don't want to die. I still don't want anyone I love to die, especially not my babies. I want my ordinary life to stay as uneventful as possible. But knowing that all our futures end in one guaranteed event should teach us to love now, forgive now, laugh now. Especially now.
God bless us all! May 2022 make us love life and each other more.
