Showing posts with label mother's death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mother's death. Show all posts

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Name In The Book















Name In The Book

So I called an uncle to tell him
his sister, my mother, had died,
and he said, "Well, all of our names
are written in the Book." I took this
to be a reference to preordination
if not predestination. After

the conversation, I thought
about the Book--an elegant
symbol of fate, omniscience,
or both. The when, where,
and how of our deaths are out
there, no doubt about that.

But are they fixed, as in a book
already printed? The uncle
I've never known well thinks
so. Since we don't get a good
look at the Book, the fixed
points aren't legible to us,
so my uncle's as much in
the dark as I; it's just that
he stands confidently there.

I wonder if the Book is also a
log and therefore included
the phone-call with my uncle
before the call occurred. Could
be. Who knows? I have to say,
that's how the phone-call seemed.

I wonder how people talked
about predestination before
books started getting made,
but from this uncle's point of
view, I should maybe stop
wondering so much.


Copyright 2009 Hans Ostrom