Shift.ms is better if you're logged in

These are my wife's reflections on a conversation we had a few nights ago.... --------- When Frodo gets MS. No, seriously... I was talking to my husband tonight, who may or may not be, entering his second relapse with MS. Sensations in his hand have been eerily reminiscent of what they were when he first began to take note of feeling a bit off about a week before his admission to the neurological unit, where he was eventually diagnosed with MS. We don't know, we just don't. Not yet. But in the ever introspective position of being a man who is, now, more than ever, compelled to know himself, and to live his life, before it is completely taken away from him... I found myself soaking in the tub, in the company of a muse. I teased, only briefly, that he has been waiting all of his life to have a story that is tragic and compelling, and now that he has one... well, it wasn't quite what he anticipated. And in ways that I hadn't anticipated of tapping into that river, yes. I unleashed something profound and powerful. The tragic character has in fact alway been his hero. Someone with a cause, a mission, a reason to fight, a reason to die... a reason for boldness and grandeur. But, as I listened, for the first time, I came to realize that the tragic hero often walks a path that isn't always the one that comes to mind as "heroic" and "noble." And as I listened, he began to talk, of Sam, of Frodo. Of what it must be like, to be Sam, sacrificing, and all in the support of his friend. Sam, and countless others, who saw Frodo's mission, who supported Frodo's cause, but who ultimately were little more than stepping stones, markers along the path, providing support, and grace, in the cause of giving to Frodo all that was required to complete the task. Something, something in the words tonight, struck me that he is aware, painfully aware, that Frodo came, ultimately, to break Sam, to wring from him grace, grace, and more grace, as he carried on with what was before him, and that even in the victory, that the path and the pattern, would forever leave a mark, a scar, on Sam. To have taken so much, so much from Sam, from every one else, as well. The painful reality that, in the end, the tragic hero wasn't always the true hero. As Frodo beat through obstacle after obstacle, often drawing from reserves that were not his own, using the grace, and more grace, of those around him, who also saw the bigger goals, those around him were not unaffected. Too many heroes, too many figures, in stealing the limelight to further their own selves, do so on the backs of those around them. And tonight, I saw in my husband's face, and I felt in his words, that he is painfully aware that the story that he has been given, really is one which isn't what all of his ideals of "tragic hero" would have written him to be, though he still longs to play the role of the one who suffers valiantly, who slays the dragon and battles the demon. But that in playing this role, the bittersweet reality hit him full in the face, that in the playing of this role, I am caught, decidedly, in the crosshairs of being that Sam to his Frodo. As I sat, tears running down my cheeks, I understood the depths of not only what he was going to need from me, but that he realized it was a hell of a thing to ask me to have to give him, and yet, he still requires it of me. And hates that in the requiring, it will cost me more than he would ever want to have to give. I wonder... am I suited to this? It was a very short tease, as I told him, yeah, no one is exactly lining up to play the role of Sam, everyone would really rather be Frodo, with the accolades, with the big payoffs. And now, now I'm not so sure. Grace, grace, and more grace... or the grandeur and accolades? I've been better fitted to grace than I have to accolades. And so I find, that yes... Lord, whatever it is you've fitted me for, it is grace. It isn't accolades, nor is it the hero status, the grandeur. And I am no Sam, he is no Frodo, we are but two who have been thrust into our own tragic life, our own drama. May I play it well.