In the book “Swallowed by a Snake”, Thomas Golden related this story of a Chinese emperor asking a Buddhist monk to write him a blessing. The monk wrote:
“First, your grandfather dies. Then, your father dies. Then, you die. Then, your son dies. Then, your grandson dies.”
The emperor was furious, for it looked more like a curse than a blessing!
The monk calmly explained that this way, the order of things is maintained. Imagine the chaos that will ensue should your son dies before you do. Golden said that when a child dies, the grief is even harder to handle because there is the added issue of the world turning upside down. Disorder. Chaos, because things had happened askance, out of place.
So that was how it felt when Ferdinand died. The world turned upside down, blacked out, chaotic, and made no sense. How could this happen??
And I think that was why I felt very insecure for a very long time, felt this world is very violent and unsafe; that someone is just going to kill us on the streets for no good reason at all.
And I have been wondering… can this chaos be ever put right?
For instance, by having another living baby? (said with held breath, in a low whisper, in case this tempts the hands of Fate)
Will having a living baby put things right again?
If not, how does one continue to live in a state of chaos?
I hadn’t thought of it this way, but maybe it’s a blessing that I always knew that my parents both had siblings that died as infants. It made it seem a little more normal to me for a child to die before its parents.
Oh, how this stuff makes my eyes cross.
Having another baby, for me, would simply even the scales again, for a time. It wouldn’t put right the chaos, no.. but it would give us another chance at a spell without chaos.
I guess the point is, can you be brave/faithful/hopeful enough to move forward despite the possibility of *more* chaos? That’s the crux of the human experience. It takes balls to love.
xo
I think that is a nice wish for someone to convey upon someone else. It just seems right. However, it is not guaranteed.
Order comes from chaos. Without chaos, order could not be realized. I am in chaos now, I am anxious, more insecure like you said, but something new will begin to emerge. Like a phoenix from the ashes. I don’t mourn my old self. I may mourn my innocence, my naïvety, but who’s to say I was better then than who I will become?
My dad was a scientist, so I’m of the mind that chaos actually has order. we might just not know it. Evolution shows that many things that start don’t make it — seeds, birds, animals, embryos, babies. We fight this, we improve medicine, but I’ve come to believe it actually happens more in this (out of) order than people realize. Would a new baby right it? Nope. Not in my head, at any rate. It would simply mean I’d finally got around to producing something strong enough to exist.
And at that point I might get around to the more ephemeral questions of love and justice.
I love all your responses.
Kate, I like “It takes balls to love.” Indeed how right! To think what those poets had written about being fools in love! dah, what do they know?
Ya Chun, I don’t think there’s ever going to be going back to the “old” self. Even if smth like this had not happen, there will be others, and somehow or other, we are changed. I just wonder, where does “order” comes from. And Kate made such a poignant case for how more chaos could ensue… …
Tash, you brought up smth intriguing that I have also been thinking about… … love and justice, eh? Not touching that with a five-foot pole.
In Judaism, what you are supposed to say upon hearing of a death is “Blessed be the Eternal Judge.” There is also a very famous apostate, Elisha BenAbuya, whose words of renunciation reportedly were “There is no Judge, and there is no Justice.” It took me a bit to connect the two, even though I read the story of his renunciation in context (supposedly it occurred after he observed a child’s accidental death).
What I am saying is that I don’t think there is justice in the global, universal sense, in this life. I also don’t know that there is real justice even if my picture of the afterlife is correct.
But interestingly, I don’t seem to spend much time worrying about it. It is what it is. And all we can do is to pick up the pieces.
And yes, love takes balls. But truthfully, I didn’t even realize how hard it was going to be until it was too late and I had no choice. So I feel like I jumped in without fully realizing what I was signing up for, and that, consequently, it might be harder to jump in the next time.
couldn’t agree more, Julia.