Below the Horizon, Shining
And the weak man longs to be a strongman. But how to do it. It dawns on him. Find one even weaker, beat him down, pose and flex for onlookers.
The strongman vibe is in fashion, online as much as on the street, in affairs of state as much as in sport. Virtually everywhere you look, here in America and across the globe, there it is for all to see, weak men longing, preying on those weaker still.
The beating down of those least able to fight back and all that posing and flexing afterwards aren’t just for show, it even gets written into law. What one state did on orders from a strongman wannabe cost a 46-year-old man with a serious lung condition his life. Stunned to learn his lifeline had been heartlessly cut, his desperate appeals for mercy fell on deaf ears. Tragedies like this did nothing to dampen the wannabe’s craving to make every state do the same thing.
And the weak man longs to achieve immortality. No matter how many others he steps on to stand out, no matter how many chapters are devoted to him in history books, no matter how many statues are erected in his honor, this will forever elude his grasp.
Do not stand
By my grave, and weep,
I am not there,
I do not sleep—
I am the thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints in snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle, autumn rain.
As you awake with morning’s hush,
I am the swift, up-flinging rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the day transcending night.
Do not stand
By my grave, and cry—
I am not there,
I did not die.
Clare Harner’s understanding of what truly makes one immortal is lost on the weak man. I cannot string words together as beautifully and powerfully as Clare Harner could, I am in awe of her gift. But I did conjure up Old Man Morger and lent him these words as I told a story of hope in Miracles Along County Q:
Dying is like the sun setting. When the sun drops below the horizon, it’s not gone. It shines elsewhere.
My thoughts went there because my parents are dead but not gone. I see them, at least my mind’s eye does. I hear their voices, or perhaps it’s a mere echo. All I know is they are with me, in me. So are my deceased sister Linda and my late brother Dan. Without these four, I don’t know where I would be, who I would be, what I would be doing. So much of my doings are of their making. Without Dan especially, I would not have had that story of hope to tell, never would have imagined the tale’s central character Ray or Ray’s dear friend and surrogate grandpa, Old Man Morger.
I could imagine these characters because I can see my parents and siblings who dropped below the horizon but continue shining brightly. I see them because I don’t look for them on an engraved slab of rock. They are not there. They did not die.
Love from and for others. The source of strength the weak man knows not.