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U.S.A. #2
Stone Riley
Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 48 inches.
Subtitle: The Distant Sunset
After my father's first period of cancer, after the treatments had succeeded and he was strong again, when it seemed clear that good years lay ahead before it truly came to get him, my wife and I took my stepmother and him out to a summer fair.
It was a Renaissance Festival all very gaudy in its celebration of the world and perhaps a rather strenuous recreation. His wife sat down to rest and mine stayed with her so he and I were loose about the place. I was unspeakably glad to have his company.
And then - amazing chance - my father came upon a friend he hadn't seen or heard from in many many years.
"Al?" spoke some fellow in the busy milling crowd.
My father stopped and stared then answered, "What? Is that you Jack?"
They were astounded. They laughed together one loud laugh of sheer astonishment. Alike, they cautiously approached eyeing one another’s bodies for whatever news might be written there before seizing hands and grinning in each other’s face. It looked for sure like this fellow must have lately come through some dangerous passage too.
It is a shocking thing to realize that we will certainly die. When it comes, that knowledge makes a mark. Perhaps an illness of your own or perhaps the passing of another forced this fact into awareness. However it has come, the shock reveals how deeply we resist this knowledge. Indeed, if we are in grief we may well ask how much of our grief is powered by a secret fear of our mortality.
I like to fancy him a sailor. He did work briefly as a merchant seaman as a youth but really this is just a pretty metaphor as though I were a child of Sinbad or Odysseus. But still, it struck me strongly there that morning beneath the shady trees. That was a moment when I felt us humans - all of us - sailing closer to the sunset than I ever had before.
We may react inwardly as if it is a shameful secret we must keep from ourselves, keep from our awareness, but truthfully death is a fact we all share.
If we acknowledge death, we may come to see the heroism that we share by living. We may choose to do our best to live courageously, properly and well.
Here's the book I put this little memoir in: http://www.stoneriley.com/CFTB_GO.html
Or here's a much larger book of short writings: www.stoneriley.com/TOMW.html
Or the home website: www.stoneriley.com
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