Endings...

One wonders about beginnings and endings of all sorts. And then realises that sometimes they are linked...connected by fine threads. Sometimes they are not; then an ending is like a sharp blunt axe falling across a vulnerable unsuspecting neck, slicing through with no hope of reconciling head and body to wholeness again.

Beginnings are often linked to endings - new beginnings arise phoenix like from the ashes of an ending. And that is good. Leaving behind one life, to begin another - that is so ambiguous, so full of pain, so full of promise. An ending immersed in the emotions of tears and goodbyes, can be bouyed up by the flurry of hellos and welcomes at the other side. Or not as the case may be, when the hello never surfaces and the beginning at the other end is like crawling through a dark tunnel.

Relationships too, I realise, have beginnings and endings. Some relationships survive and grow, flourish like well tended plants imbibing nourishment from the dynamics of the give and take, turning ones face to the sun of warmth, or resting beneath the shade of gentleness. Relationships can be shelters and refuges from the vagaries of life. Some relationships are like finely crafted works of art - worked on with care, faithfulness and deep abiding love. Like Jane Austen's novels that took her 18 years to write - to craft every sentence to what she wanted it to be. Like many paintings that take years to finish.

But relationships sometimes end. And end in many ways. Some peter out to a listless end, with time, distance, interest effacing what was shared. Some do not stand the test of time and people grow apart fired by different trajectories of their paths. Some end with bitter words or unresolved conflict that kills like a slow poison. I am reminded of Blake's poem "the poison tree":

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe;
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water'd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with my smiles
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil'd the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch'd beneath the tree

Perhaps we all face the end of relationships at some point or the other, and the wisest thing to do is to understand the kind of ending you face and take it gracefully. Perhaps we ought to pray for honesty at endings - where no one is left blundering in the dark fog of nuances and emotions they do not understand or even begin to make any sense of.

And if we face an end, perhaps we ought to pray, that somehow we are spared the felling of an axe, the bitterness, the anger and knife sharp edge of a violent end.