Bravery

Last week we attended the twenty-third annual “Inter-generational Day” at the elementary school three of our grandchildren attend.  The day’s centerpiece is a school-wide musical production, with the children from each grade, one grade at a time, singing and dancing in choreographed routines.  The musical’s theme this year was the Olympics, with each grade (two classes per grade) representing one or two countries. 

Our elder granddaughter’s third grade represented South Africa, with the girls dressed in yellow and brown head scarves and matching sarongs.  During the middle of their dance performance, one of the girl’s sarongs fell to the floor, revealing her in her white underwear.  Her undergarments were the soul of modesty, with a high neckline, sleeves half way down her arms and pants almost to her knees.  Still, it was clear from the expression on her face that she was mortified.  The nightmare of being naked in a public place – is there anyone here who has not dreamt that dream and is there any place more public than an auditorium with hundreds of spectators? – had come true for her in effect, even if she was in fact still dressed. 

She hung her head in acute embarrassment and then, pulling herself together, continued her dance routine with the rest of her class.  She didn’t run off the stage but soldiered on.  Hers was one of the bravest behaviors I have ever seen.

Bravery comes in many forms.  It’s not found only in the battlefield.  It’s found in performers, like the late Glenn Gould, who suffer from severe stage fright but who nonetheless perform in public.  And it was found in several of the friends we visited last week.

Two of them are recent widows and the third is the husband of a wife dying from end-stage Alzheimer’s disease.  He visits his wife daily, but she does not recognize him.  She’s present and yet she’s not.  For each of these three friends, the world has changed irrevocably.  Icarus has dropped into the sea, a few feathers floating above the little splash his body has made, while merchants and buyers haggle in the marketplace and farmers till their fields, no one paying attention to those feathers and that splash.  Our friends now must go about their affairs as if nothing has changed although everything has changed.

Unlike the courage of the girl in our granddaughter’s class, their bravery is hidden from the world.  They continue their routines, they work on the projects that engaged them before their loss, they entertain their friends, they engage with the world.  But they do so under a burden of grief unimaginable to one, married for almost 50 years, still lucky enough to sleep next to his spouse.  One night, however, our bed will contain only one of us, and that person will learn what’s it’s like to carry on alone.  I only hope the survivor will do so with as much grace as the friends we visited last week and the girl in our granddaughter’s class.


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