Lilly Sway

It is perplexing to me why we, the supposed intellectual, moralistic human beings, do the callous things that we do. We quite often treat those that we profess to love like those that we abhor. The catalyst for these questions happens to be a family going through changes in life that are universal to any member of the human race. Death effortlessly disturbed the delicate balances which they took for granted. Scared and confused, this family was left with the difficult tasks of resuming their lives and making difficult choices. A while back Mrs. P was diagnosed with widespread inoperable lung cancer, everyone tried to live normally, but a year and a half later, she died. Exactly a year later, her husband is getting remarried. (I guess some people deal with those things better than others; although they were married for 24 years) Their children are grown and are finishing graduate school and they are away for the most part. Wallowing in self-pity was not an option for Mr. P. (obviously). Sarah, his daughter, called me to say that her father had asked her to come home and rid the house of anything related to Mrs. P. He said that he had to make room for his new bride’s things and that he needed a fresh start. Apparently, he is getting a fresh start, in the fast lane. Save her tombstone, he callously decided to discard the last remnants of his wife’s presence on this planet. Conveniently their marriage vows did state: “till death do us part”, but she was the mother to his two children and she did stay with him through thick and thin. Sarah thought that if he was brave enough to continue his life as if her mother had never existed, he should make a clean start and deal with the associated tasks with equal commitment and valor. Where is the compassion? Where is the caring? At the very least, WHERE IS THE RESPECT? I could not believe my ears, losing her mother was hard enough already, but to ask this of her was irresponsibly adding insult to injury. Mrs. P was the embodiment of goodness, beautiful inside as well as out. The kind of person that left a good feeling inside of you after you spent time with them. She was that special someone that everybody knows, the one that leaves people smiling. I couldn’t name a person that disliked her or her cheer. She was like freshly baked cookies, like Christmas morning, like endless laughter on a beautiful day. Sarah broke down and started to cry, she asked me if I could help her out. I put her mind at ease and said that I would help her with her task. When the weekend came, I met her and we cleaned out the old stuff and took down the photos we packed them for storage (that she paid for). We loaded what we could and I put her in her car, but before we left, Mr. P came out to say thank you and he said that he was going to go ahead and put what was left on the curb. She burst into tears and he asked: “what is that for?” The heartlessness of that statement left Sarah and I with the knowledge that he most certainly did not know or care. She was gone after all.

Food For The Mind,

Lilly Sway