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Laws of Life Essay, Alyson Pittman

Alyson Pittman - School Winner, 12th Grade Winner, Fifth Place State, Dr. Joan Beers, teacher

Maxim: "Mourning is not forgetting... It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the dust. The end is gain, of course. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be made strong, in fact. But the process is like all other human births, painful and long and dangerous." - Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke

Character Trait: Strength

Barriers

The barn, with its red tin roof, stood small and unassuming just beyond the old wooden gate to the pasture. Bahia grass had encroached upon the barn's outer wooden walls, providing a dark haven for snakes and ant hills. Where once the barn had been brimming with the sweet smells of hay and horses' sweat and oats, it now stood dry, dusty, and empty save for the cob webs that hung without inhabitants in the corners of the stalls, save for so many countless memories I could not escape. The barn had been a common ground between my dad and me. It was there that I first learned how to trim a horse's hooves and the proper way to administer vaccinations. It was a place where disagreements and obligations had no relevancy; our focus became the horses, and everything else was forgotten. It was also in this barn that my dad spent his last few hours alive, brushing and feeding the horse that would kick the lower part of his skull with such force his brain stem would hemorrhage, forging a barrier between his unconscious brain and the rest of his body.

Months passed after my dad's death, and I still had not found the courage to venture out to the barn, where the memories of my dad were most prevalent - where it was most painful because the barn had become so lifeless. If I went there alone, without my dad, the memories I had might somehow become tarnished, forgotten, discarded, replaced by a growing sense that my dad would never again be in that barn, would never again be with me. But just like all good memories, my barn memories were fading. I no longer could recall the smell of the hay and the oats, and my nostrils had forgotten the pungent mixture of sweat and dirt. So I resolved to go to the barn in an attempt to recover what I had lost and instead found something I had so desperately needed.

The barn was just as I had remembered it: warm, yet dark and cool, a shelter from the hot Georgia sun that made summer last from March to November. The late afternoon sunlight flooded through the open windows, illuminating the shadows of the barn with a hazy, dusty, almost palpable light. I slowly unlatched the door to the tack room with trembling fingers and opened the door timidly, fearfully. Inside, the room smelled as it always had. I let my hands skim the warm wooden walls, let them brush against the prickly hay, let them feel the soft, pliable leather of my dad's old Western saddle. Tears swelled, and I began to cry. I sat down on a hay bale, my elbows pressing into my knees, feeling the uncomfortable but familiar itch of hay beneath my thighs, holding my wet face in my hands. My eyes slowly panned the small room, lingering longingly on saddles and tools. Through my tears, I saw something small and dark blue slouched in the dusty corner of the tack room, hidden behind a bale of hay. Leaning over the hay to pick it up, I realized it was my dad's old work cap, the one he wore when he mowed the pasture and rode his horse, the one he wore for the last moments he was alive. I buried my face deep in the cap, inhaling the smell of my dad's sweat, the smell of his work and his pleasure, the smell of his favorite part of life. My crying had escalated to sobbing, to bawling, and finally to physical exhaustion; I could not cry anymore.

It was then that I realized how foolish I had been. By building the barrier between myself and the memories of my dad, I had allowed myself to run from the pain, but running had only carried me closer and closer to fear. I understood at last that mourning was not a sign of weakness but instead a sign of strength and of life, of the willingness to live and go on living wholly and passionately and hopefully, the way my dad had taught me to live. I knew I could no longer shield myself from pain, for pain is the most necessary and beautiful part of life, the solid reminder that we are still alive. Placing his cap back where I had found it, I walked slowly away from the barn, and, as I walked, it was as though a weight had been lifted from me, and I could finally face the pain unafraid.

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