There is a Better Way

All right, I admit it - I did shed a few tears on Monday afternoon.  And when it had finished, I grabbed up my coat and made my way to the back to put it on, thus avoiding any casual conversation after the event.  The occasion was the matinee screening of the film Little Women, billed as a combination of the book of the same name and a biographical reflection on the life of its author Louisa May Alcott.  I found it a potentially confusing interweaving of events from Alcott's series of four books: Little Women, Good Wives, Little Men and Jo's Boys, but I didn't notice any specifically biographical content, apart from the obvious similarities between the writer and the central character, Jo March.

The story is set during and after the American Civil War and - by pure coincidence - I obtained last week a triplet of DVDs produced by A&E Television Networks LLC under their History label.  This week I watched one that featured the events at the end of the war, before and after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln on Good Friday, 1865. 

Lincoln had controversially declared that, when the fighting came to what seemed early that year to be the inevitable conclusion of a Union victory, there would be no punishment or retribution levied upon the Confederates, but that they should be treated as brothers in a positive, forward-looking and united federal republic.  The programme depicted the face-off between generals Grant and Lee at the famous surrender at Appomattox Court House a few days after the president's death.  Fortunately for the future of the nation, Grant was determined to fulfil his late president's wishes and, in so doing, set the pattern for the peace that followed.

Lincoln's plan for this kind of peace essentially treated the war as a very violent example of a family quarrel and, in the story of the March girls portrayed in the books and the film, there were many quarrels and arguments - some of them quite violent - just as I imagine is the case in most families.  However, time - helped by the influence of a variety of pacific characters like Lincoln, and Mrs March - is a great healer and resolver of discord.

Looking back through the lens of my own recent 'significant birthday', I realise how my own view of life's ups and downs has mellowed.  Fifty years ago, I saw things very black and white.  There were those things that I saw as Right, and anything that disagreed with them was Wrong.  There was no middle course that could be adopted without undermining that which was Right, and therefore fall under the general heading of 'Wrong'.

In the world of politics, which is seldom far below the surface these days, I've never been completely in favour of, nor completely averse to, any party.  I can see good and bad points of most claims and counter-claims.  And, although I'm a committed Liberal Democrat, I know that, in common with others, there are things in their policies with which I disagree. But I support them because of those that I do agree with and want to succeed.  For the sake of such hopes and ambitions I don't feel I can hide behind my closed door and do nothing.

Sometimes life's events have a way of resolving an argument or quarrel by bringing about a far more significant calamity, such as in the story of the March family when a quarrel led to Amy burning the manuscript of Jo's book, a personal affront that Jo was not going to forgive.  The next day she and Laurie went skating on the frozen river, hotly pursued by Amy, anxious to make amends and regain Jo's affection.  Jo pretended not to hear her calling, and followed Laurie around the bend.  Amy, who hadn't heard his advice to keep to the edge where the ice was thicker, sped off in pursuit only to fall through the ice.  All thought of the burnt manuscript was forgotten in Jo's anxiety to help Laurie rescue her sister!

Unsurprisingly, I can't recall a similar drama in my own past.  However, there are a number of incidents that were disasters when they happened but, looking back, I can see how the passage of time and other events have rendered their effect less significant than seemed to be the case at the time.  It may be a good thing that we can't always tell what is just around the corner!