It is the 100th anniversary of TS Eliot's poem The Waste Land. I was intrigued because I had never read it, and of course I share a name with the author. I though about Dylan, who shares a name with the poet Dylan Thomas, and how I hope she reads him someday. So I read the poem (well, listened on Audible, probably better than reading it myself). And it is about death, and what comes after, on earth. And it ends with the chant "Shantih shantih shantih," the traditional ending to an Upanishad.
To whom it is not known, to him it is known. To whom it is known, he knows it not. It is not understood by those who understand, it is understood by those who do not understand.
- - Upanishads, Teacher, 3
Last night I sat outisde with Teddy. I wondered if he misses Nicole. I tried to explain to him, but he doesn't understand. Maybe if I had shown him Nicole's body, shown her getting buried, but he would have thought it only looks like Nicole being buried, he would never have believed it was her. So he must go on with the question, when will she be coming back. I wish I could tell him, so he would know and so he would be able to understand my hug.
I started to think, maybne that is how g-d looks at us. G-d wants to tell us where our loved ones go, wants to comfort us with the shared understanding, and yet cannot make us understand. We do not speak the same language. All he can do is show us, in seeingly unconnected and mysterious ways, and it is up to us to see the possible meaning, and try to understand. The best we can do is try. The best we can do is guess.
