Ed’s note: This week our columnist is writing from the perspective of Rhett Butler, a fictional character played by the actor Clark Gable from the classic film Gone with the Wind.
Scarlett, it's been a hard introduction to the New Year for our village with the losses of our friends and loved ones. The sorrowful field goals that kicked off the month remind us that there is an end-game, and eventually, we all get to be the quarterback. Fortunately, there is a post-game show for those who played, and the vagaries and the mysticism of the game are resolved for them.
Or, as the fallen, boozy preacher tells Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath: “Maybe there ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue; it's just what peoples does.”
Some of us are good, others are bad, but the padre had prefaced that with – “What is the Holy Spirit? Maybe that's love?”
Good or bad, he implies, we are still capable of love, and perhaps the spirit remains with us either way.
In any case, those who have preceded us recently now have all the answers; they have resolved the mystery. We who remain now carry their losses in our hearts and in our heads, appreciating the empty space that remains in the monument of their memory.
Well, it ain't the Dirty Thirties, Scarlett, but that wind that blows us and our crops away still howls at times, to force us to hunker down, or keep our nose to the wind, lest we surrender to the gale. I will admit one thing, Scarlett, a man on his own in that storm is not getting very far. Only together can we share strength and its comfort, especially in suffering, but; when times are good, we can all join the dancing and feasting. That is something I cannot do alone.
So, as the Good Book says, always be prepared for there is a thief in the night. Always have your best clothes laid out for the morning, for one way or another we will wake up. The homily of living life in love and preparing at all times to face judgment without fear is a lesson best learned while still alive kids. We do not want to learn the parable's lesson too late.
The balance of power tips to the social collective, and individual liberty harmonizes with such a buffer, so that we eventually find our places and homes, our loves and enemies. May they all remember the good stories. The organic context for the canvas of our lives are those tales that are told, whether tall in hilarity, or edged with intensity, so we may as well paint with many colours, and not just the black. We can choose to be good or bad, and everyone will get to know you as such. They will not know, for the most part, what made you bad, but you can be assured that they will know what made you good – family, friends, compassion, love, intellect, or what your strengths are, maybe, even your weaknesses.
I am now intent on reminding myself once a day of what people will remember of me, as a personal lesson I will take from these instances of the mortal coil. Is my character good, or bad? This will be elucidated in the stories and tales that follow my legacy, and I will have no way to counter those bad memories once I am in the fiery crucible, or breathless on the slab.
The dawn of a new day occurs once in every season, upon the equinoxes, for progress to appear in time, to sow, or to reap. And Scarlett, upon my lonely journey, I have miles to go before I sleep.
The difficult unveiling of the New Year has brought all my own actions back to me; the short life I have, and those loved ones I have lost through my own inaction, misdirected rage and anguish, and bad choices.
It is not just karma, or cause and effect, what follows the fire are the charred remains. I could have taken that fire and lit the way ahead, instead, it flared out of control and left a wasteland upon my own history. So what are the stories that others will have of me upon my passing? I am ashamed to say some will not be happy, uplifting, constructive, or even socially redeemable. However, even a bad man can have a good memory of someone's life – that heritage of action and thought, attitude and conviction.
These recent losses have emphasized to me the importance of the here and now - our present. We cannot take the minute for granted, for it becomes an hour, which becomes a day, which becomes a night. And though the hour may grow late, this minute leads to the next, and therefore the chances arrive, perchance to dream.
So, Scarlett, let's live each day for the good path, strive against darkness, and eventually, we can rest easy. The candle can burn itself down, so we can light the way.