Sons Without Fathers -
And then, suppose you’re reprieved, and you get up the next morning
and you’re not dead; could you look again at the sun and the trees and the sky and think they’re the same old sun and sky and trees, nothing special at all, just the same old things you’ve seen every day?”
I’ve been looking at the world as a condemned man these past few weeks.
In her novel “The Bird’s Nest,” Shirley Jackson writes: “I was thinking what it must feel like to be a prisoner going to die; you stand there looking at the sun
and the sky and the grass and the trees, and because it’s the last time you’re going to see them they’re wonderful, full of colors you never noticed before, and bright and beautiful and terribly hard to leave behind.
But alas — for Mama ultimately, death was the only angel
that could shield her from despair.” He continued: “I hope that before too long the turbulence of your spirit will subside and you will reach to tranquility in your inner self.”
My last moments with Sydney, in which the obdurate reserve of fathers and sons dissolved, will always be a reference in this quest:
“You have a lovely family,” I said.
Each of us carries a measure of mystery; each of us faces situations in which there are no good choices; each of us, untying the
knot of a life (lived forward, like all lives, without the gift of hindsight), will become wary of casting the first stone.
