"I'll tell you what the human soul is," he whispered, his eyes closed. "Animals don't have one. It's the part of you that knows when your brain isn't working right. I always knew. There wasn't anything I could do about it, but I always knew."
Shortly after the tragedy of September 11th I read an article in Time Magazine which has stuck with me ever since, although it had little to do with 9/11 and even less to do with anything that might seem important. It was a back-page tribute to the great biographer William Manchester, whose first two volumes on the life of Winston Churchill were universally hailed as landmark studies. The author noted that while the literary world waited patiently for the promised third volume (which, incidentaly, was to cover all of World War II), it became increasingly obvious that Manchester would never rise to complete it. He had, it seems, recently suffered several strokes, and while he was as smart and as knowledgable as ever, he was unable to make any connections between various facts floating around in his brain. For a writer, this is tantamount to death, for the inability to make connections leaves you as vulnerable and helpless as Alice jumping down the rabbit hole; sure there are wonderous new sights and incalcuable new stories but, well, what does it all mean?
But the author, not finished, took it a step further - asserting that the ability to make appropriate connections is all that's really human about any of us. If we do have souls then their main power seems to be in connecting seemingly random events to make a life - a picture with the face of a loved one, a song with the memory of a first kiss, a scent with a smell of our mothers. And I thought about that, and I liked it. And I liked it so much that I plagarized some of it from memory for an article I wrote a few months after.
Sarah has been stuck at the office this past week, working massive amounts of overtime for E3, an annual gaming conference held in Los Angeles. Hoping to lift her spirits some, and because I had to return a pair of shoes she left at my apartment, I brought her lunch this afternoon and ate with her. Walking to her cubicle I noticed very little in the way of decoration: a few pictures of me, an advertisement for her dance class, and a white sheet of paper with a quote on it. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate," it read. "Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." I was the one who had sent her the quote, so I know where she read it first, but I would be lying if I said seeing it displayed so prominantly didn't shock me a little. For the last time I saw it printed like that was in my mother's office, thumbtacked to the wall, shortly before she died. So there it was: a connection. Held together by a stapler and some push-pins.
And I thought about how much I loved my mother, and how much I love Sarah. I thought about how much I've experienced in the years since my mother's death, and how much I look forward to experiencing with Sarah. And, to quote Kurt Vonnegut, "I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep."
And, somewhere in there, I thought about my grandfather, who remains one of my all-time heroes. Like William Manchester, my grandfather was plagued by strokes in his old age. One visit he would see me as one of my brothers, the next as my father. Towards the end of his life he didn't seem to recognize me at all. Or maybe he did. Maybe he did recognize me but couldn't place me, couldn't connect me as the son of his daughter, couldn't connect my life to his own. And maybe he knew he should have been able to. I hope not. I hope not because to lose something is a great tragedy, but to lose something and KNOW you've lost it is a hell of indescribable torment.
My grandfather died, by the way, on September 11th.
Shortly after the tragedy of September 11th I read an article in Time Magazine which has stuck with me ever since, although it had little to do with 9/11 and even less to do with anything that might seem important. It was a back-page tribute to the great biographer William Manchester, whose first two volumes on the life of Winston Churchill were universally hailed as landmark studies. The author noted that while the literary world waited patiently for the promised third volume (which, incidentaly, was to cover all of World War II), it became increasingly obvious that Manchester would never rise to complete it. He had, it seems, recently suffered several strokes, and while he was as smart and as knowledgable as ever, he was unable to make any connections between various facts floating around in his brain. For a writer, this is tantamount to death, for the inability to make connections leaves you as vulnerable and helpless as Alice jumping down the rabbit hole; sure there are wonderous new sights and incalcuable new stories but, well, what does it all mean?
But the author, not finished, took it a step further - asserting that the ability to make appropriate connections is all that's really human about any of us. If we do have souls then their main power seems to be in connecting seemingly random events to make a life - a picture with the face of a loved one, a song with the memory of a first kiss, a scent with a smell of our mothers. And I thought about that, and I liked it. And I liked it so much that I plagarized some of it from memory for an article I wrote a few months after.
Sarah has been stuck at the office this past week, working massive amounts of overtime for E3, an annual gaming conference held in Los Angeles. Hoping to lift her spirits some, and because I had to return a pair of shoes she left at my apartment, I brought her lunch this afternoon and ate with her. Walking to her cubicle I noticed very little in the way of decoration: a few pictures of me, an advertisement for her dance class, and a white sheet of paper with a quote on it. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate," it read. "Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." I was the one who had sent her the quote, so I know where she read it first, but I would be lying if I said seeing it displayed so prominantly didn't shock me a little. For the last time I saw it printed like that was in my mother's office, thumbtacked to the wall, shortly before she died. So there it was: a connection. Held together by a stapler and some push-pins.
And I thought about how much I loved my mother, and how much I love Sarah. I thought about how much I've experienced in the years since my mother's death, and how much I look forward to experiencing with Sarah. And, to quote Kurt Vonnegut, "I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep."
And, somewhere in there, I thought about my grandfather, who remains one of my all-time heroes. Like William Manchester, my grandfather was plagued by strokes in his old age. One visit he would see me as one of my brothers, the next as my father. Towards the end of his life he didn't seem to recognize me at all. Or maybe he did. Maybe he did recognize me but couldn't place me, couldn't connect me as the son of his daughter, couldn't connect my life to his own. And maybe he knew he should have been able to. I hope not. I hope not because to lose something is a great tragedy, but to lose something and KNOW you've lost it is a hell of indescribable torment.
My grandfather died, by the way, on September 11th.
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