SOME UNIVERSALTRUTH : “THINGS FALL APART”
When I was a high school student I had
read a novel, Things Fall Apart by
Chinua Achebe, the African writer. It depicted a Nigerian tribal village that
was stable for centuries but quickly and utterly crumbled after the arrival of
colonialism.
In a heartbeat, things in our life can
fall apart and the reality is that they can and do as can be seen from these three
of the many true stories.
1.
One of my good friends was standing at
a busy intersection waiting for the lights to change. Beside him stood a
middle-aged lady and a grey-haired gentleman. We did not expect this glimpse of
our mortality.
It was evening rush hour, dusk was
upon us and everyone was in a hurry as usual. Traffic whizzed by centimetres
from where they were standing, staring across the street at the pedestrian
signal. When the lights changed, each of them instinctively began to step off
the curb to cross the road.
An instant later, they were all
reeling back against each other. A delivery truck, trying to beat the light,
sped past them centimetres from the curb and through the intersection against a
very clear red light. The wind from the speeding truck slapped their faces. Had
they taken another step, one or more of them would have been under the wheels.
The three strangers were brought
briefly and intensely together at the intersection and were bonded by their
shared close call with death. I heard them briefly counting their blessings by
shaking their heads in disbelief at the red-light runner and then hurrying in
their separate ways.
Things could have fallen apart for one
or all three road users and I could not help but wonder how many centimetres
stood between their close and catastrophic adventure?
2.
Last year when I was
in Los Angeles spending my healing time with the family of my brother, things
fell apart close to their home. A young lady across the street, a sweet
natured, always smiling, high school student was driving home. It was just her
routine trip until she came to a dip in the road where water tended to collect
but this day because of the freezing temperature the young lady could not judge
the hazard of the frozen black snow. When suddenly she applied the brake the
car skidded and hit an oncoming truck.
A happy life was forever
altered. The lady remained hospitalized with brain injuries and the bereaved
parents all helpless and distraught. While their daughter was convalescing in
hospital fate put them in even a worse situation when a loaded truck skidded
off the pavement and crashed through their bedroom wall, killing them both.
Their other two sons who escaped injury were left orphans.
Things fall apart,
and many times in ways so incredible as to seem impossible and unbelievable but
they are not.
3.
Later that year I
went to visit my younger son in Kuala Lumpur and heard this story from the
grieving parents. Their three sons went out one evening and after enjoying
their time at a nearby restaurant decided to call a taxi to go home but no taxi
would come so they decided to go home on foot. It was only a few kilometres of
walk home late at night.
There was nothing
particularly queer about this but as the brothers were crossing the road near
their home a bus ploughed them down. Two of the brothers were instantly killed
on the spot but the third brother miraculously escaped unhurt.
Sometimes life can
look like a shooting gallery and we become the swimming ducks in the lake. The
shots come at random picking off some and sparing others with no pattern or predictability.
Of course, there seems no fairness at all.
Therefore, the
parents of the brothers still feel that life is many things but fairness is not
one of them. Think of the brother who was left behind to prepare to cremate the
other two.
Things do fall apart
and for the rest of us who are lucky, there is tomorrow to be careful and avoid
the circumstances where things do and can fall apart.
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