It was Isabella’s first day working as a nurse in an elderly nursing home. At 7 am, she was in the garden surrounding the home. At her footsteps lay plenty of plumeria flowers; they were white and open to the world like beautiful ballerinas with a tinge of yellow in the center adding to their thorough brightness, driven away by the wind just like she was driven to this new place with no image of what shall follow.
A sudden breeze had followed along in the scene of utter incomprehensibility. Next to her stood a magnolia tree with its flowers blossoming so elegantly and lovingly. An overwhelming feeling grew inside her as she stood still grasping the beauty instilled within the scene with silence. The sun was hidden shyly behind clouds of anticipation of a brand new day. It wasn’t just a job, it was a new moment in her life with which she had stood remembering all the novel experiences in her life. The first achievement, the first love, the first loss, and every possible beginning had struck her all at once. She felt like a piece of music was being composed in her heart and mind. There was an untold story in the music that she could feel but whose meaning she couldn’t quite reveal.
For many years, a mundane life was imposed upon her rebellious soul, taming it into something obscure and perplexing. Alone in a small apartment in a village outside the city, a small bedroom overlooking a window and garden on a quiet street, she lived in infuriating solitude filled with nothing but memories. Perhaps men are destined to be deprived of their ambitions the moment life becomes one of frivolous aims and selfish causes without real value? But then, there were days when Isabella felt nothing; hollow emptiness would permeate her soul so profoundly as though she was experiencing death with a subconscious mind. Unfortunately, to man's despair, even nothingness is an unlivable pain.
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| The Gift. Source: metmuseum.org |
Almost 20 years ago, Isabella was a new graduate from one of the most prestigious universities. She was beautiful and smart and, above all, self-confident. She walked around on her graduation ceremony, her long brown hair braided with flowers below her graduation cap. Her eyes glowed with the pride of her success, and her lips ceased not grinning. In the graduation hall, an old man of middle height and a slightly bent stature stood close by, watching her impatiently. His feeble body was incapable of bearing his weight, and he leaned on a dark brown wooden cane. His deeply wrinkled face disguised a mixture of joy and pain, and his teary eyes spoke of the untold tales of life.
He was life and death concealed in a human being. As much as life is an enigma, so is death. It is the only experience one cannot discover. The secret part of life that cannot be revealed except to those who are indefinitely frozen in time and banished from the cycle of life. Isabella approached the old man and hugged him tightly as though destiny had rejoined them once again. He was her father and her only supporter in life. As years passed by and as much as he felt overjoyed to watch her grow into the beautiful woman she had become, she had sorrowfully watched him grow into the old exhausted man he now was. She would sneak into his room at night and count every breath he took, then stare into infinity to remember how life never gives back what it takes.
Years later, she was facing life alone; the ultimate destiny of man, it appears. She was an eminent teacher at the same university where she once graduated. But success may have nothing to do with happiness and achievement may be constrained by the features of the time we live in. Van Gogh, the painter, was never famous when he was alive and died having sold a single painting. Nietzsche, the wise and sincerely redeemed philosopher who praised all values in life, never got to experience many of the joys of life. And Jane Austen, the romantic author, never enjoyed the loving embrace or tender touch of a lover.
And as such, Isabella who gave highly praised lectures on social behavior had been living a life of social disengagement. What good does it do to mourn, Isabella always asked herself? Why is the world so intangibly constant, yet comprised of infinite dynamicity? Was she destined to be miserable or was she perceiving the world the wrong way? For as long as Isabella had begun to create her own perspective of the world, it became all the more inexplicable. She, unlike many others who are either unaware or careless of the matter, questioned the integrity of life that is both begotten and abolished with every new sunrise. Perhaps the theory of life exists in that the winds of change seize not to blow wherever life exists. And if life blossoms through the seeds of change, then death is both the means and end of life, dubiously concealed in the form of inexistence.
On a quiet morning in her small balcony, she contemplated the person she would love to become, like a little child with invincible dreams of greatness. At the age of 40, it might have seemed too late to ask the inevitable question, “who am I?” But the relief of being able to willingly re-live life with every new morning had opened the door of possibilities once more.
The sacredly promised wind of change had squalled into her dull life. At the age of 40, she had decided to blossom through a long awaited twist of fate. She was going to be a Nurse. She was revived by a simple dream added to her stagnant life like a magical spark. And after the inevitable passing of time, she stood there in front of the small nursing home, waiting for life to blossom once more in her heart. The glow of humble achievement had lit up her eyes. She remembered her father, her childhood, her successes and failures. And though the wind of change had struck her life mercilessly on many occasions; for Isabella, it was now the ultimate gift. The gift of change.
Yasmine Yousri Said, MSc student
This article originally appeared September 2014 in CNS Volume 7, Issue 3, Nature vs Nurture
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