SORTING MYSELF OUT

I had quite forgotten how the man put it, all those years ago, but just now, as I scrambled about searching for a foothold, the words tumbled into mind. Suddenly they were there in the very centre of my room, blocking every exit. There was to be no escape. The man insisted that I listen and not just for old-time sake.


"There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not.
You shall not deny the Stranger." (Eliot: Choruses from the Rock)

Evade Life? Who would be so foolish? We of course, who else? We who are forever on our phones, busy with the affairs of others, in return for their feigned interest in ours. With so many keys to tap, so many interests to entertain us, Life can very easily be given the slip, until, that is, just like the man said, "the stranger" calls. 

Her voice came first, still shaking with shock: "He died just yesterday, your old friend of teenage days. Cancer, you know." She continued "That means that the children have lost two grandfathers and a cousin, all within eleven short weeks". Ah, so, I thought, he has not forgotten the way to our door. Time to put evasion aside: the stranger stands within our very walls. He will be heard. 

No, I have not forgotten, the cousin. No indeed, it is his going from us above all others, that has me searching for words. No, I had not forgotten the young man's passing. I pause only that you may better appreciate the effect of the stranger's knock on the door of our house.

I have known a Father and Son who daily worked side by side, yet spoke but little. Even so, the partnership was a success, it brought results, something to pass on. But this was different; here was the happy embrace of human beings meeting life together. A generation apart, they nonetheless welcomed  time and its gifts with youthful enthusiasm, as their shared futures unfolded about them. 

Why, we all knew they were partners before ever a partnership was formed. Could not the stranger have stood quietly by and enjoyed the sight of his eyes just as we all did? Did he have to come knocking, reminding us of the fragility of our days?

To that one question there came many answers but none that satisfied. "Oh, isn't it true what they say, he only takes the best?"  Really? And a hidden part of us turns away, without conviction. "He'll be looking down on us for sure;" more hollow still. It's simple really. As the man said, "we shall not deny the stranger". It had all been done so nicely, the words, the music, the ceremony, but then? Then came the living without him. The smile, the jokes, the texts and phone calls, no more. "We shall not deny the stranger." 

Some say LIFE is God's maiden name and silence his vernacular, his everyday mode of speech. We shall have to see, won't we? We can switch off the phones;  they simply ring out. Even the well-intended pretty music friends draw to our attention struggles to cope with pain. It is into the silence, His silence, His vernacular, that we must direct our ways. It is a silence that speaks more loudly than words, but can be heard only with the heart. It is the secret language of life, and it is with this, we must now engage.