Out Of The Old Black Bag

 

OUT OF THE OLD BLACK BAG

 

Return to Camelot — Part 3

By Anthony Kovatch, M.D.

 

Perhaps the premonition of a premature death is not acquired solely by what one witnesses during their lifetime, especially their childhood. Perhaps the premonition is also inherent in our DNA. Regardless of the truth, I think it is incumbent on us to be proactive in the matter rather than fatalistic, as was “Papa” Hemingway:

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”         

— From “A Farewell to Arms,” thought by some to be his greatest novel

 

It is improbable that Death thinks like the Army Corps of Engineers, whose motto is: “The Difficult We Do Immediately. The Impossible Takes a Little Longer!” However, it has occurred to me as a senior citizen that it is critical not to procrastinate when it comes to warm, tender memory formation. It is time now for this writer to return to the inaugural Lyons Family reunion before tangential thinking takes me deeper into the darkness of the human condition.

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever… The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose… (Ecclesiastes 1:5 — King James version)

 

A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association confirmed what practitioners already strongly suspected: there is a correlation between genetics and suicide attempts across the life span; this allows stratification of risk in order to focus more selectively on mediation. We must all be strong advocates for formal group education of mental health issues in the school systems, starting as early as the later elementary school years. Indeed, however, the prevention of psychological trauma needs to start in the cradle. Perhaps the family reunion can be a periodic rededication to this global initiative (as well as to reversing climate change).

It all boils down to appreciating the “small change” — the simplistic everyday memories that comprise the fabric of our earthly lives. Let us fondly remember Emily’s searing monologue at the conclusion of Thorton Wilder’s sentimental, existential play “Our Town.” 

Emily is waiting at the graveyard with her loving relatives expecting to join them in the afterlife. The audience is made to believe that she will soon die in childbirth (she does not) and is awakened to the fact that every tick of the clock is truly Camelot:

“But, just for a moment now we’re all together. Mama, just for a moment we’re happy. Let’s look at one another.

I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. All that was going on in life, and we never noticed. Take me back – up the hill – to my grave.

But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by Grover’s Corners. Mama and Papa. Goodbye to clocks ticking. And Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths. And sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?”

The stage manager answers without emotion:  “No. The saints and poets, maybe they do some.”

I might add to Emily’s litany: And looking into the eyes of your grandchildren at a reunion after being crushed by them at Jenga and chess!

Emily’s emotional pleas to the world are suddenly interrupted in the play by the earpiercing, but starkly welcome, cries of her newborn baby; she will live.  We the viewers are at once relieved, but, even more so are grateful beyond words for being allowed to witness and share the spiritual experience traversing death and life.

“Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot.”

 

Dedicated to the old professor who gifted me with the “A” I did not deserve on my thesis on Ernest Hemingway. Little did he know that he helped me to see the world which “breaks everyone” more clearly in the long run.

 

Enjoy all of Dr. Kovatch’s previous essays on The PediaBlog here and here.

 

source http://www.thepediablog.com/2022/09/22/out-of-the-old-black-bag-31/