Reflections in the Globe

At my grandparents house where I grew up, there was a globe. It was one of those things that would sit there dormant, but on occasion could steal the attention from the entire room. It wasn't special. Probably a gift received at a Christmas party. You could find it anywhere: two feet tall (at best), bronze plated hardware, the globe itself was covered in brown-earth color finish. I'm sure many families had them, but each families could draw out their own history in a very peculiar way.

Yesterday, the one time I made it out of my room, fighting through the turbulence of a hungover state, I somehow found myself in a store that had the same type of globe. And for a few minutes, as the girl I was there with stood at the checkout asking about something important to her, I spun the globe that mirrored that one that used to live at 5410 17th Place Lubbock TX 79106.

My grandfather lived quite a life. Born in India, in the southern state of Kerala, he was determined to do much. You could say live a life of quality. And he did such things. He was a physician, a missionary, an Ambassador (with a picture with Margaret Thatcher to boot), and a father as well as my grandfather. My grandfather fixed hearts for a living. But as he did for the physical, he repaired souls for the spiritual. He lived in India, Africa, spent time across the European map, and finally settled in the southern part of the Texas panhandle. He was a surgeon by trade, and good man by heart. He died tragically young, but left along a legacy that will continue to be cultivated by generations upon generations.

And as I spun that globe yesterday, I thought about him and his life. I plotted along the miniaturized version of the world as we know it, and envisioned his life across both hemispheres. I projected the photo relics that my mother has told me about when she grew up in India and Africa. I saw the life of a man that did so much, but yet, where it ended in pathos.

Then I envisioned my life. I at first tried to parallel the two, but that was just demoralizing and just did not work. But then I asked of myself to be a tributary, or maybe like it is naturally, to be an offshoot, a product of, the natural situation as that of a proud grandson continuing the legacy of quality man. And I plotted my way along that globe. Sure it hasn't spanned multiple worlds. Sure it hasn't done so much as regarded acclaim from the greatest modern empire-yet, but for the short time that globe spun and I could see how my life has lived out,  I didn't mind smiling with a bit of pride.

We left that store and as that girl and I tried to catch up from the turbulent ending and even beginning to our short past-lived-relationship, I realized the past is too difficult to sum up at once. Sometimes it takes the world to turn to really catch our attention. Sometimes the death of something, or even someone good, to really take our breath away. Sometimes we have to lose everything to begin to understand the value of what it means to even be alive. We are here, and there are others there. And as I breathe this breath, so too will someone somewhere breathe in the same sort of whimsy and exhale it with the same amount of hope as they too plot out their course of the dizzying future of a spinning globe.


Without Relent,
Peace
Remoy