Process Journal: Final Narrative
What is a Final Narrative? Scholar Mark Edmundson in his book Why Read? cites Richard Rorty as stating that a final
narrative “involves the ultimate set of terms that we use to confer value on
experience. It’s where our principles are manifest”[1]
Edmundson suggests “Get to your students’ Final Narratives, and your own; seek
out the defining beliefs. Uncover central convictions about politics, love,
money, the good life. It’s there that, as Socrates knew, real thinking starts.”[2]
Years ago, in philosophy class, I fell in love with Socrates. One of
the things he taught was “the unexamined life was not worth living.” There are times when I need to pray, to read
and to reflect. What do I value most?
I value my family, my friends, my faith, and my health. I value the many
lessons these many loves have taught me. They taught me to stand my ground and
to not give up, especially when things are most painful. They taught me that
love does not end just because two people quarrel, or when one of them must
leave the relationship. They taught me that love is worth fighting for, and
sometimes worth dying for. I value those loves who have both entered and exited
my life, and the time and the courage it took for them to love me as much as they
could, for as long as they did, or still do. I value most those who had the
courage and the fortitude to battle my demons with me, who in the words of
Winston Churchill “never gave up, who never backed down, and who never
surrendered.” Churchill battled his own “black dog.” It was a term he used to
describe his chronic bouts of depression.
I have known people who have made me feel greatly loved, deeply
respected and genuinely admired. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the pain of some
of the wrong choices that I have made along the way, the people I have hurt,
and the people who have hurt me, whether intentionally or unintentionally. And
I will awake from sleep to find that I had been crying. Though unable to recall
my dreams, I am filled with a profound sense of sadness and a longing in my
heart for something lost; something I deeply regret, something I dearly valued.
There are times I experience
a spiritual dryness, ‘wilderness periods’ in my prayer life. There are times I
struggle with prayer and I find it difficult to pray. There are times I forget
to, or how to, pray. There are times I have questioned my faith, my sanity, my
beliefs and my values
But given my experience, my overarching answer to the question “what
do I value most?” Presently, it would have to be “my mind.” For having lost it
numerous times, to think of losing it completely is unbearable –say to
Alzheimer’s disease-or something else that would not allow me to remember the
people, places, ideals and objects I value most in the first place.
My greatest fear was losing my sanity completely if my husband
should die before me, and being with people who did not know, love, or
understand me. I pictured myself homeless, living in a cardboard box and
howling at the moon. Or institutionalized, locked in a room indefinitely,
banging on a door that no one would open. I learned from being in the darkest
regions of hell, only when it is black enough I would see the stars.
The darkest period of my life
however, was NOT when I lost my sanity, but when my grandmother lay dying four
years ago. It was the relationship I shared with her that I valued most. I
feared losing her would be too much for me. It was she who taught me the value
of faith, family, and friendships. She
instilled in me an abiding love for quiet prayer and contemplation. She taught
me to pray, to live and ultimately to die with courage, faith, and grace. She
was my grandmother and my best friend. It was because of her I want to be a
teacher and a writer or both. It was because of her that I am in university now
at this moment.
I feared her death would be the death of me. I feared remaining in
that very dark place because I would not be able to bear her loss. But whilst
she lay dying, we talked openly and honestly about her imminent death because
we knew we had limited time in which to do so, and we were both grateful for
the opportunity, as some people are not given that chance, or they are given
the chance but are too afraid to take it. I urged her to forgive my grandfather
his transgressions, as she had remained angry with him for sixty years.
I never mentioned my fears of possibly having another psychotic
episode, instead, I sat alone beside her, both of us praying the rosary
together, and contemplating the issues, persons, and things we valued most in
our lives. We talked about what we meant to each other and our deepest regrets.
As the days passed (it took her three months to die) I experienced a
miraculous internal transformation. For I had found a peace and courage I had
never known before. Often, I would sense and feel the presence of angels,
saints, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, our departed loved ones, our living relatives and
friends when we were praying. I felt their presence and their love. It was this
faith that sustained me, and gave me the courage and strength to endure her
death with grace, fortitude and love.
If I listened carefully, I
could almost hear my loved ones prayers mingle with my own, and then softly
drift above me. I could almost feel
the tips of the angels’ wings as they brushed softly past me. Some people may
think that I was hallucinating given my illness; others may feel that I
imagined it. Some people may mistakenly believe I was weak because I had been
hospitalized four times in a psychiatric ward long before her death. But I
found the courage, strength, and tenacity to write and to calmly deliver my
grandmother’s eulogy. I was able to do this only because of my personal experiences,
strong values and intricate beliefs concerning my religion, my faith and my
family. I knew in my heart that “Those remembered never die.” And my
grandmother was always with me, in my heart, in my spirit and in my mind. I was
no longer afraid of the future and I was far less inhibited by the past.
It was my grandmother who instilled a passion for books in me. Throughout
my life since I was a little girl and I first learned to read, books have been
my closest companions. I did not make friends easily and therefore books became
my teachers, friends, and guides. I love the way they feel, the way they look,
and the way they smell. I love the sound each page makes as I turn it. Books take me to different cultures,
different time periods, and to different worlds. They reveal so much about the
authors themselves. There are books and then there are GREAT books. A great
book grabs hold of me right from the start, and maintains my interest until its
final chapter. A great book will make me laugh, cry, and feel the depth of the
emotion of its characters. The book will stir something in me and make me tingle
from the tips of my fingers, to the bottom of my toes. It makes me shudder and
sigh simultaneously, and leaves a lasting impression upon me like a great
dinner, a good bottle of wine or a satisfying orgasm. The end of a great book
is like the end of a great concert, it leaves me wanting more. Books have taught me so much about humanity
and the need to believe in something outside of myself. Books have
strengthened, sustained, and guided me through years of psychological,
emotional, physical, and spiritual torment. At times they have been balm on an
ever gaping wound.
Many books have changed my life. They have often taught me the power
of the human spirit and the true meaning of love, friendship and humility.
Ultimately, I believe that we are here to love and serve a Higher Power,
whatever we imagine that to be and to love and to serve one another. We serve
one another by being kind with our thoughts, our words, and our actions. We
share the love through the generosity of our spirits, our gifts, our time, and
our experiences. It is my hope to help and serve the mentally ill and to give
them hope, the hope that they will not always dwell in darkness.
Since developing bipolar
depression the Bible, Kay Redfield Jamison’s “An Unquiet Mind” and “Touched
with Fire,” Scott Peck’s “The Road
Less Traveled” and “People of the Lie,”
and Thomas Moore’s “Care of the Soul”
have become some of my favorites. Like great teachers they have both taught and
inspired me. These books completely transformed my life.
Thomas Moore, an ex-Jesuit priest writes “We become persons through
dangerous experiences of darkness. We can survive these difficult initiations.
Any real initiation is always a movement from death to life.” This was how I
felt when released from the psychiatric ward the last time. I felt as though I
was reborn. Moore wrote “we are who we are as much because of our gaps and
failures as because of our strengths.”
In reading his book, I discovered that I am a soulful person. Moore
describes a soulful person as “complicated, multifaceted, and shaped by pain
and pleasure, success and failure.” He argued “the uniqueness of a person is
made up of the insane and the twisted as much as it is of the rational and the
normal.”
His book helped me re-evaluate my
bouts with depression and madness. I was able to face the grotesque images and
dark experiences. I was able to view the world with very different eyes. He
inspired me with words like “When the divine shines through ordinary life, it
may well appear as madness and we as God’s fools.” The writers and artists,
teachers and prophets whom I love and value best, are those whose brains were either
already mucked up like mine, or someone shattered with a bullet because their
art, their words, their music, their political aspirations, or their religious
convictions were different, and they dared to speak their minds. At this stage in my life, my key
values are: my connection to and appreciation of those I love who fill me with
a sense of purpose, the tenacity and clarity of my mind to read, appreciate and
treasure the books that guide and inspire me along an arduous and often
dangerous journey; an abiding faith, love and belief in a Higher Power and my
family, and lastly, a sense of interconnection to a world, a family, and a
person whom I may at times, not recognize, nor understand.
Lynn-Marie
Ramjass
No comments:
Post a Comment