Life goes on.
These were three famous words from Robert Frost to offer hope to a fearful world during an interview in the 1950s. As the Medium writer Kyle Chastain so brilliantly writes, these are words we desperately still need to remember today.
Life goes on.
These three words have formed the titles of TV series, famous songs, and other forms of art and literature(no doubt countless works carrying this title). Just like innumerable other proverbs or adages or even seemingly cliche quotes, the truth and profundity of these words resonates through whole oceans of times and spaces.
But does life so easily go on?
And if so, is that really enough? What if we liked things the way they were before? What if, in our lives, we had captured a small, indescribably beautiful piece of heaven? What if we had clung to this in the midst of the world’s constant flux, only to be told that the very fabric of those most cherished parts of our life could soon themselves break apart and drift in all different directions?
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis’s experience of tragedy as a child. His mother died at a young age, and he wrote this about the unspeakable tragedy:
“With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.”
Maybe at some point, we all experience this devastating breakup of life’s most sacred parts, though the experience is a little different for each of us. Sometimes it is the loss of a grandparent, intermediate family member, dear friend, or close confidante. Sometimes it is witnessing the divorce of parents, the estrangement of loved ones, or greatest of friendships gone sour. Too often it is the loss of comfort or innocence to unthinkably horrific events or just plain life gone wrong.
How many of us have a huge dark line in the events of our lives where we can break down the beautiful, pristine “before” and then the “after,” which is really the aftermath of an unthinkable, unimaginable nightmare? Some people spend the rest of their lives trying to recover, or at least trying to keep their boats afloat. Others experience so many nightmares in life that it may seem as though they are just trying to hold onto a life preserver.
Whatever our experience may be, one constant inkling may sometimes chime.
What is this thing now I have, can it even be called life?
We go through the process of mourning loss and work to heal, and somehow follow Wordsworth’s direction to “find strength in what remains behind.” Some days may seem impossible, though we carry on.
Another similar idiom echoing across the world from a couple years ago was the charmed breath of “this too shall pass” in light of the 2020 Covid pandemic. The pandemic indeed passed, or at least subsided to a certain degree. But it left the world as we know it in such a shaken, desolate place from which humanity must again confront some of the most startling truths it may have easily forgotten. In our ever advanced age of gigabyte-data smart phones, terabyte hard drives, Google super search engines, and automated things, a microscopic conglemerate of proteins proved powerful enough to shut down whole continents and tragically claim millions of lives. We have been forced to remember the hard way that we are still precious, vulnerable creatures pitted against an often merciless world. The is the sad alternate side of the worlds of worlds out there being infinitely complex, wondrous, and for the most part beyond our grasp.
But out of the settled dust from windstorms or firestorms, countless deeper insights can be gathered and new beginnings can spring forth. For one, as life or things in general undoubtedly continue after the most unimaginable or horrific of events, should we not be grateful as Wordsworth says that at least some of what was best and most beautiful continues on as well? From our lost job we still carry skills and lessons we can take to new endeavors. From lost friendships come amazing memories and lessons to help build new relationships. Even in the event of a loved one’s tragic demise, we can come to find that person continuing on in new, amazing ways. Each of us might have a story of a loved one we see shining down on us or sending us signs. Or sometimes we simply hear them speaking to us in the depths of our hearts.
Also, don’t the worst of experiences bring us a depth of wisdom we did not have before? If events threw us face first into life’s deep ends, did we not come to realize the strength we never knew we had (or that was bestowed on us by Grace) to keep steadying ourselves to the surface. Don’t we also come to find an enhanced vision we maybe did not have before. If those dearest pieces of our life were so enchanting before, maybe there were other pieces that were not quite as endearing. If we do not remember those less than good things, then could the same parallel be true during our worst times? Might the infinitely wonderful goodness and beauty we had found before still be waiting behind the hovering dark clouds?
A final insight to be gathered is that we should not forget to turn our attention ahead.
Life goes on.
And what if the future, like those amazing and enchanting times from the past, has innumerable blessings, wonders, and riches beyond our wildest imagining in store?
And each of us in our own time and place will find a new rebirth of spring after the long, cold winter with new enchanting pieces of heaven that renew us to the core. This may be a new love, new relationships and friendships, children being born, closer connections with existing family and friends, and new insights regarding the ever-wondrous questions of human life and existence itself. Just as we’ve pondered, we can hope many of these new infinitely wondrous blessings are some sort of resolve for those worst of hardships or losses(though the effects of those worst events may never fully go away). Oh goodness what wondrous miracles when we realize those loved ones gone too soon to be continuing on in some shape or form and shining over us.
And perhaps then to expound upon the maxim,
“Life goes on. New life awakens from life.”
We savor the infinite riches in the present while taking refuge in what remains after anything lost. And we direct our gaze to what lies on the horizon ahead, looking forward to the best that is yet to come.
