SADNESS
FLIES AWAY
Sadness
flies away on the wings of time- Jean De la Fontaine
I came
across this sentence a few days back. It really intrigued me. It was sending
hope yet I knew of situations that saddened the heart irrespective of time. It
was full of positivity yet I myself had experienced the negativity of sad situations
again and again, irrespective of time. I wondered if sadness really flew away
on the wings of time. I had always felt that time blunts the cutting edge of
sadness and replaces intense pain with bearable pain. But it never flies away,
always leaving your heart empty and with that deep heaviness where sadness sits on
heavy bottoms, moving just ever so slightly to allow a trickle of happiness to
jostle for space in an already overcrowded cubicle.
There are sad moments that disturb us and
there are sad events that destroy us. The sad moments remain floating and their
lightness gives them the effortless ability to fly far away from our hearts. It
is the sad events in our life that settle down in the deep recesses of our
heart, never to leave. It’s crucial to understand the difference to lead a life
free of burden of sadness.
Losing a
dear one or a young member of the family suddenly is always devastating. In a
split second it uproots the entire family tearing the fabric to shreds. Its not
just the suddenness of loss, it’s also about the inability to comprehend what
lies ahead. Life stops acutely and the wheels running smoothly brake with a
deafening sound that tears the ear drums causing a deathly silence in that
moment. The vision is clouded and the mind gets numb beyond words. You walk in
a daze unable to make sense of anything that formed your routine. Is it easy
for this extremely devastating sadness to ever fly away?
Experts
working on grief and bereavement have analyzed the grief and bereavement period
classifying it into four stages. The last stage is about acceptance. Eventually
after going through the phases of disbelief, anger and guilt of having lost the
loved one, the person begins to accept the situation. Time is the greatest
healer they say. With time, the intensity of sadness starts to blunt on its
edges and the jagged margins of memories hurt less than before. Time and
acceptance help to look at the memories of the lost one with a new vision. Eyes
blur less and heart cries a little less. Physical expression of hurt lessens
and an occasional smile replaces the memory.
All this
happens over decades and that one life we have gets scarred with utter sadness.
Many of those who are left behind lose a lifetime in coming to terms with the
reality that just swept them away from a normal life. Sadness takes a real long
time to get washed away and here it also leaves behind imprints that are hard
to clean.
Fortunately,
such an immense tragedy strikes rarely. For most of us, our lives are filled
with floating sad events that do get washed away and we can barely remember the
pain or hurt they had caused.
Illnesses of
loved ones, humiliation at work place, inability to bear pressures of life or
work, stress from relationships, broken hearts and broken bones, thefts, breach
of trust, cheating, financial losses, failure in businesses, strained family
ties, natural calamities that wash away home and hearth, all account for those
moments when things can get unbearable and cause a deep pain in the heart. Many
of these tragedies take away all that we have or have collected over years of
hard work for a secure future. Often, thoughts of ending the problem by ending
the life cross the mind, some weaker minds even going ahead with it. Often,
despair and depression cloud the rational thinking. Darkness envelopes the mind
and the tunnel seem to have no proverbial light at its end.
With a mad
rush to lead life in the fast lane, most of us lose the ability to tackle
pressure head on. The greed for success can be so blinding that we forget to
see our inner strength and beauty. Even small ups and downs can appear colossal
and stop us in our tracks. They can break us because we have forgotten to
harness our inner strength. Depression and stress induced physical ailments
capture our minds and bodies. The energy of youth and the skills of the
adulthood are lost in the maze of fear of failure and hurt. The helplessness
and hopelessness of the situations arise because we have lost the confidence in
ourselves.
However, one must never forget that in face of
greater tragedies like death, these are the floating lightweight sadness that only time
will erase and will one day fly away on it’s wings. Most of the problems we
encounter, most of the difficult situations we face seem to hold us in their
tight angry squeeze. But there is no such a problem that does not come with a
solution, albeit it can make one compromise the routine or change tracks. Eventually,
the sharpness of the difficulty blunts away and the pain fades away leaving no
evidence of the hurt it has caused. The human body and mind is well equipped
with so much strength as to handle any of these distractions and fill the heart
with happiness again. There is no such a bad situation that eventually does not
fade away into the horizon. What seems impossible is just another problem with
multiple possibilities of opportunities.
A change of business or a job,
re-establishing communication with the person that has hurt you or simply
moving on, slowly rebuilding life after calamities or financial losses are all
a sure possibility with time, faith and determination. None of these problems
take away the ability to work our way to the top again. The bottomless pit
where one finds oneself in such a situation is not bottomless at all. The
tunnel is dark but we must believe that there is light somewhere. Slowly and
steadily, we can crawl up into light again. Our precious life and our inner
resolve is very much alive to pull us up.
The story
goes of the king who was so despaired in face of defeat that he ordered his
people to find a solution in one sentence. None of his ministers could find a
proper sentence. It was an old uneducated simpleton who gave a ring to the king
embossed with a sentence to be seen in situations of utter despair. The king
facing one such situation saw what was written on the ring. It said, “this too
shall pass”.
Almost similar to what Jean
De la Fontaine has said, sadness does fly away.
The more I
thought about it, the more I saw the positivity and strength in that sentence.
Very rightly,
it is profound, it is full of hope and guides us through those difficult times
which at that point seem permanent and endless.
We forget
that, this too shall pass.
But it will.
On wings of
time, for we all know, Father Time has our back!
