Following up on my post from Monday: Heather gave me a link to Bruegel's painting...Musee des Beaux Arts makes even more sense when you look at them together.
Some people over the years have told me that they find it a depressing poem. I don't think it is depressing, necessarily, to remember that while monumental things are happening, so too are the mundane. And with the bad, the good. The best day of my life was the worst day of someone else's, and vice versa.
I was thinking of that on Monday because I had talked to a dear friend who was very, very pregnant with her first child. On Monday her doctor made the decision to induce labor on Thursday. That is, on September 11.
I asked how she felt about that, and she said it didn't really upset her. We remembered that on the September 11 she'd been the one who told me what had happened. She said "When we sat in your office trying to get the news on the radio, I would not have imagined that two years later I'd be becoming a mother."
She also told me that this September 11 marked the fifth anniversary of the day the family had removed her husband's teenaged cousin from life support following a car accident.
She called me first thing this morning. Their son was born, following some complications, at 11:57 last night. He is now doing fine, as is she. I am filled with relief and joy for her and her family.
Terrible things happen. Wonderous things happen. Nothing happens. Life changes every day. Life goes on as before every day.
Ecclesiastes has something about that too, I think, although I admit I'm more familiar with Pete Seeger's lyrics (by way of The Byrds) than the King James version:
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it's not too late.
Happy birthday, little boy. I wish you many seasons of love and peace.
Posted by Nic at September 12, 2003 11:34 AM