Open Writing

To characterise the year 2007 to this date I would call it ‘The Year of the Door.’ Although much of it has been spent in earnest discussion about wills, insurance policies, and who gets what, etc., it is fair to say that 'The Door' has overshadowed all that end-of-life legal stuff.

Even though I turned seventy-two annos dominus this month, and Old Mortality beckons with his bony finger for me to follow him into the advancing shade, my fading constitution was briefly revived by an incident not unconnected with a frequently asked question of physical science to do with moving bodies, still bodies, and the nature of materials, although not approaching the gravity of irresistible forces and immovable objects.

Since none of our children are dependent on us, Gay and I know that they will survive our passings with grief appropriate to the degrees of relationship they enjoy with us. Some will be distraught but not inconsolable; one here (or there) might drop a stitch; others might get a stitch laughing; and some will be indifferent. However, that is life and the customary reward of parents who commit the unforgivable sin of failing to be perfect by not living up to each child’s expectations.

While that is the stuff of history, I am among those fortunate to be blessed by having reached the level of maturity necessary to forgive his parents for not bringing him into the world through a royal dynasty and heir to a fortune in gold, diamonds, palaces, horses, and gilt carriages, rather than being born to a drunkard and his abused wife in theatrical lodgings with not a penny to their name and seemingly even fewer good and rational ideas in their heads.

My friend the Walrus reminded me that it was time to think of many things, such as cabbages and kings and sealing wax. Although I have not enjoyed whatever the content of ‘many things’ might be, nor even yet ‘kings,’ my last king being thoughtless enough to die so that I took the Royal Oath of Loyalty to his daughter (and to ‘her heirs and successors,’ although I entertain grave misgivings about every one of them!), but I have delighted often in cabbages, and am no stranger to sealing wax.

My last sealing wax was dropped hot onto the back of a parcel when we lived in Montana. The Post Office hadn’t seen the substance before and thinking it could possibly, maybe, perhaps, be some alien fungal form that would destroy the forest trees and all the properties on ‘Bar Street’ they called in a brigade of the Yaak Volunteer Militia – nickname ‘The Invisibles’ - who used it for target practice somewhere high on Kilbrennan Road close to the lake, but not close enough to disturb either the tourists or the fish.

Had it not been for the door, I would have been recounting my blessings instead of counting what I didn’t get. It is not that I missed not having what I didn’t get because by the time I was able to mark my deficiencies I was also aware that I was not alone in not being born to wealth, rank, and privilege, and so my condition seemed normal. And it was the same for almost all the people I knew.

Those to whom the lowly rank did not apply, appeared singularly blessed, although few of them publicly acknowledged their advantages or compared themselves with the less favoured, probably because the examples ingrained by parents made them aware of differences in status and had rendered them sufficiently kind neither to mention them, nor be seen to think themselves superior.

The door was minding its own business, just being a door. Opening and closing to facilitate passage in and out, much as all doors do. The only thing that could dignify this door above common doors was the fact that it was said to be ‘automatic.’ However, we have discovered that ‘automatic’ is a relative term, and one of my close relations has brought this relativity into sharp focus by testing said door by means of a non-standard experiment, in which it proved itself not to be as ‘automatic’ as it could be.

If all doors were equal, then someone would have invented a truly automatic door. But although all doors are subject to similar forces when activated, no one has succeeded in making a fully ‘automatic’ automatic door. Even self-opening doors in retail shops and supermarkets are not truly automatic because they are programmed and unable to think for themselves, as they would be able to if they were truly automatic.

This proposition can be tested by running as fast as possible towards a closed doorway at, say, Marks and Spencer’s – a British upmarket Macey’s – and seeing if the door is auto-intelligent enough to realise that a missile (you) is approaching at terminal velocity, and so open itself rapidly enabling you to pass unhindered through its opening.

In practice this test always ends in failure with the tester slumped, crumpled and bruised, in a heap at the bottom stile of the door’s casually opening gap.

Try it for yourself. If your walking is not so swift, then get a collaborator – ask around for ‘Igor’ – to push-start your wheel chair, supermarket trolley, or other conveyance, at the speed of an on form bobsled, and check it for yourself.

Smart parents will have one of their rowdy children make the attempt as surrogate, supplied with suitable headgear and the promise of a bag of sweets as a reward whatever the outcome. Always have the child sign a waiver in the event that when he regains consciousness he also comes to his senses and sues you for child abuse.

Perhaps we have cause to sue the makers of our garage door who describe it as ‘automatic’ because it failed to respond when put to the test. That the test was inadvertent does not minimise the misfortune, neither does it diminish our disappointment that it failed to keep the promise inherent in its description. It looks like res ipsa loquitur to me!

However, readers must not assume that because I have lived several years in the most litigious nation the world has ever known since the Roman Curia fell from the top spot, that I have become infected with the sue-‘em-for-every-penny-they’ve-got mentality, because such is not the case.

And, in reality, I have learned through sad experience not to expect too much even when solemn promises are made, and to expect less from things and people, especially when they promise a lot. So the ‘automatic’ label did not really fool me, although if it had lived up to its promise I would still be railing on about things that some people – especially the young – find morbid.

Yet there is nothing morbid in the elderly making what preparations they can for their final mortal adventure when they will embark on their journeys into that eternity from which they sprung in the ‘sleep and forgetting’ of their nativity. It makes good sense to leave things in order, loose ends tied in slip-proof knots, appropriate bequests written, and everything ‘ship-shape and Bristol fashion,’ so the last of our breathing is not spoiled by something undone but remembered at the point when speech fails us. None ought to die overwhelmed by disappointment, so preparation is essential.

Gay was backing out of the garage, when she suddenly believed that the Apocalyptic Event was upon her. She experienced this order of things when the massive pine tree fell on the trailer in Montana right over the bedroom in which she was. Although she lives as she ought – as I will readily vouch - and is not expected to be among those burned as grass when The End comes, she was surprised by the unbiblical sound of breaking glass, and was then moved to wonder why the garage door was sitting on top of the Explorer! It was a fair question.

A summary Inquest was held, and the Coroner returned the verdict that the automatic door failed to respond to a reversing two-ton SUV, and therefore it was recorded as a ‘misadventure.’ The Court overlooked the fact that the garage door’s electric circuitry was locked in the ‘disabled’ position, as it always was overnight, and also the fact that said driver had failed (altogether too harsh a word to be used in connection with my Beloved) to ensure that daylight was visible unhindered throughout the whole of the garage door’s aperture, and not just through its six diminutive windows.

Although we will all die, none of us will die in a state of perfection, although some get closer than others, and most of us will need a mercifully blind eye turned towards our flaws, which is what is promised.

That being so, then I am confidant that the doors of heaven are truly ‘automatic’ and will open wide for all who hurl themselves towards them, however speedily they approach. To this sure and certain knowledge I dare add the hope that they will have taken care of all their earthly business before setting out on their final flight, so that those they must – for a season – leave behind, do not dash themselves upon evanescent but essential doors that open with less urgency.

Copyright © 2007 – Ronnie Bray

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Other stories at:
http://www.2theheart.com/author_ronnie_bray
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/voices/011024summer.html