Sometimes, Things Turn out for the Worst.
And why that’s o.k.
Last night during dinner, my roommate’s boyfriend asked me what I had done in the last ten years that I was the proudest of. Yikes!
That night, as I lay in bed, I forced myself to try and think of an answer. What had I done in the past decade that I was proudest of?
My wedding entered my head as a possible answer, but was getting married something to be proud of? I mean, there wasn’t anything about getting married that showed I had merit or talent.
I thought about becoming a schoolteacher, buying a house, my academic accolades, but all these milestones all seemed to miss the mark. They also lacked authenticity.
Like most things that trigger my anxiety, I had to look deeper. I had some investigating to do. And like all good investigators, I needed some evidence. I wanted to prove to myself that I was worthy, even if I failed to produce any satisfying answer to his question.
So, I turned where any reasonable person would turn when they can’t answer a question: RELIGION!
I come from a very strong matriarchal lineage of Christian moralists who in one way or another passed on the message that “everything in life will in fact turn out for the worst:”our loves ones will die, we will die, and set against the mystery of creation, our short-lived lives will have no more consequence to the cosmos than that of the ants or the spiders.
In March of 1964, five years before she died of breast cancer, my Grandma Phyllis wrote a letter addressed to her people. On page 6 of the letter she tells her family,
“Remember we are only on this earth for a while like a vapor, that passes away. It happens to all of us. That is the way God made the earth. But, we can be happy, cause God sent us a Savoir. So we must live for Him not ourselves.”
On page 12 of that same letter to the family, she writes,
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where rust corrupts, and thieves break through and steal. Rather store yourselves up things in heaven, where nothing spoils, and thieves cannot break through and steal.”
In her letter, Grandma Phyllis never once told her people to hold onto optimism; on the contrary, she told them that God’s ways are mysterious and beyond the ways of the world. Instead of dwelling on the miseries of her cancer, she granted her family a “rare, tranquilizing glimpse of [their] own insignificance” which I believe was meant to console them in the face not just her death, but death itself.
Further back still, there is the story of my Great-great-great grandparents, Carl and Charlotte Zadow, who lived a life of unimaginable hardship. Their name was trod underfoot by the system of privilege that dominated West Prussia during the 19th century.
According to the Zadow family history book, the family worked as surfs on the estate of Der Herr or the landowner. They were NOT paid for their work and as my great-aunt put it, they “despised the landlord for the way the were used at that time in history.”
One of the daughters of Carl and Charlotte became pregnant by Der Herr Sohn, the landlord’s son, who had most likely raped her in the barn.
It is almost impossible for us to imagine what it was like to be born into serfdom as a young girl, under the thumb of a landlord, in 19th century Prussia.
I did do a little research into the time period, and around the time Charlotte’s daughter would have gotten pregnant, and I found an interesting fact about the fairly tale story Little Red Riding Hood.
During that time in Europe, there were two different versions of Little Red Riding Hood. One version was told to the peasant class and the other version (the one we know today) was one told to the landowners and the aristocracy.
In the peasant’s version, when Little Red Riding Hood finds the wolf, disguised as her Grandmother, he tells her to crawl into bed with him. After she has gotten into bed beside him, he tells her to take off all her clothes and her apron. She undresses and gets back into the bed with the wolf and then, he EATS her!
The tale was clearly told to young serf girls to emphasize that the worst does happen, especially to the vulnerable, the powerless and the weak.
And so, in order to derive some comfort outside of the families’ inferior position in the social hierarchy and their worldly vulnerability, the family believed in God. From God’s vantage point, all human riches, grandiosity, titles, power and projects were insignificant and would not last forever.
Emilie, was the name of the illegitimate child born of Charlotte’s daughter and the landlord’s son. She would never be able to recall what her mother looked like, because her mother died before Emilie turned one.
When Emilie was eight years old, her Grandma Charlotte would travel with her to the new world on a cattle ship. These two women would become the first of my European ancestors to settle in Canada.
Emilie, like many generations of women before her, had an exceptionally challenging life in Canada. Yet, Emilie is described by my great-aunt as a “kindly and good mother who loved and feared the Lord. She held morning and evening family prayers, read her Bible, and quoted from it. One favorite quote of hers was,
“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.”
I like to think that God has spared our family from being entirely tempted and corrupted by the pleasures of the Earthly city. Each of us, in our own way, is noble and unassuming. I believe, for the most part, God has spared us from the practice of glorifying worldly things and seeking worldly status. God has done us justice by not just giving us the best of the world, but the worst of it too.
Now, the next time someone asks me, ‘What have you done in the last ten years that you’re the proudest of? I will say something like, “Oh, what an interesting question! I’ll take a sip of black coffee for dramatic pause and say, “I’m the most proud of following the religious morality of my maternal grandmothers. And yourself?”
My response will seem unwavering and forthright, but at least I’ll know it came from a place of authenticity and not a place of anxiety or worst yet, egoistic pride.
