Latest update March 29th, 2024 12:59 AM
Feb 19, 2017 Countryman, Features / Columnists
By Dennis Nichols
Just two weeks ago I felt moved to comment on the tragedy of children’s lives ended through adult
violence. This week there is a variation on the theme which includes the perspective of the poet – Dylan Thomas to be precise. But before that, last Sunday’s fiery death of an eighteen-month-old and the memory of six children who died by drowning along with their teacher two years ago almost to the day, force me to ponder yet again the matter of young lives lost, with a twist.
Around 1945, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who apparently was preoccupied with death, wrote a particularly eloquent if rather inscrutable poem about a girl dying in a fire during a WW2 air raid in London. The title ‘A Refusal to Mourn the Death by Fire of a Child in London’ states its gist much more plainly than the poem itself, though few would claim to not get the impression of the no-frills acceptance of a done deed. It’s over, terribly so he implies, and sentimentalism won’t cushion the finality of the end of a life, no matter how honourably or horribly it ended.
As I get older I am less inclined to analyze poetry and life, both of which have a hundred interpretations and moods. So the most I will say about this poem is that Thomas clinches his attitude in the title, and using nature and biblical imagery, just about manages to make us see the child’s death from his point-of-view, which I guess would be not to romanticize or get too maudlin over the event, emphasizing ‘I shall not murder/The mankind of her going with a grave truth/Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath/With any further/Elegy of innocence and youth.’
The poem ends ‘After the first death, there is no other.’ I think I get that – the final, irredeemable evil. Thomas obviously didn’t give too much credence to the afterlife. It’s death; deal with it! One online critic sums up, but softens, the message’s harshness. “Children shouldn’t have to die, and neither should anyone else whose life is cut short by another’s hand, but we have to accept that they can and do. There’s no consolation to be found in mourning, and in any case it’s hypocritical to favour one death with elegies while suffering is so widespread. The best we can do is allow the dead some dignity…”
The reality of life and death for too many of us here in Guyana gives little scope for philosophical pondering, but when children die violently or capriciously it has to give us food for thought. It seems so unfair, so inexplicable, that we must assign deeper meaning to it. So we have the idea that God takes them back to transform into beautiful flowers, or outfits them with angels’ wings, in His paradise garden, and their death becomes more understandable; more palatable.
What would Dylan Thomas think, and in a country like Guyana where growing into adulthood is a daunting challenge for many, who cares?
Most of us don’t, but of course we do care for those who mourn the death of a child. Unlike the first person narrator in Thomas’ poem, we sympathize, empathize, and grieve vicariously with them. But in doing so, he might say, we probably expend the kind of mental and emotional energy which could be better served in coming up with solutions to the problems which in many instances lead up to and/or trigger the acts that end young lives.
In the case of that alleged triple murder/suicide last Sunday in Beterverwagting in which a baby was burnt to death, if, as is being suggested, the perpetrator was frustrated due to lack of employment and also angry at a suspected infidelity of his wife, it points to the socio-economic and relationship issues that plague many young couples. This may frequently follow lack of formal education (and subsequently upwardly-mobile employment) and problems dealing with stress and anger complicated by low self-esteem and jealousy. Maybe finding a workable solution is where some of our righteous grief-energy should go.
Anyway there are thousands of young men and women in a similar dilemma who would never dream of such a fearful and final solution. And by the time babies and small children get caught in the crossfire of the crippling shots adults fire at each other, there usually isn’t enough time, or the resources, to avert a deadly denouement. Then of course there are the accidents, many times caused or assisted by human error, with divine non-interference, as children are drowned, burned, electrocuted, and fatally crushed in vehicular collisions.
A few days ago I looked again at the picture of six colourfully-attired children taken mere hours before they and their teacher drowned in a submerged car at Burma, Mahaicony two years ago. As I did, the words of a children’s hymn sprang to mind ‘Jesus loves the little children … red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight’ and the irony and incongruity hit me; each was outfitted in Mash costumes of those colours. Knowing their subsequent fate makes it one of the most poignant images I have ever seen and one of the most heartrending scenarios to contemplate. Again, what would Dylan Thomas have made of it?
Related to the untimely deaths of young children is the trauma of maladies many of them suffer, often from birth, without cure and sometimes without cause. And on a tangent, as God is seen to be our children’s de facto creator, loving each one immeasurably, and as He is the omnipotent controller, arbiter, and healer-in-chief of every illness, why do millions of them suffer indeterminably and die so inexplicably and apparently so unnecessarily? So-called miracle healers may have something to say here.
Every year millions of children around the world suffer and die from horrible diseases, birth defects, accidents, and homicides, and God, for reasons most of us don’t understand, allows it. Televangelist faith healers however make claims that the diseases and defects at least can be healed, and they cite countless thousands who have been prayed over, had hands laid on them, and various other techniques that result in healing, which is both difficult to comprehend or disprove. There are however numerous cases of children dying after their parents refused medical attention and waited in vain for a miracle healing.
What I find fascinating is that although I have ‘seen’ people healed on TV of minor or nebulous ailments, out of the millions who suffer, I am yet to see or hear of one amputee, one quadriplegic, one infant born with a serious physical defect, one child with a cleft palate or cerebral palsy – just one – likewise healed.
When televangelist Benny Hinn ‘healed’ some wheelchair-bound Guyanese many years ago, a reporter tried to follow up and document the miracle but couldn’t find anyone who had been permanently cured. If a reader knows to the contrary I would be very interested in interviewing him or her.
Maybe Dylan Thomas got it right; after the first death, there is no other. But with all due respect, I question that assumption and along with my country folk who mourn the threshing of young lives, reserve the right to do likewise. Thomas died at the ripe young age of 39, but at least, unlike Nakasi Pollard and dozens of Guyanese children who died traumatically over the past few years, he had the privilege of navigating his childhood.
THIS IDIOT TELLING GUYANA WE HAVE NO SAY IN THE 50% PROFIT SHARING AGREEMENT WE HAVE WITH EXXON.
Mar 29, 2024
By Rawle Toney Kaieteur Sports – After a series of outstanding performances in 2023, Tianna Springer, dubbed the ‘wonder girl’, is eagerly gearing up to compete in this year’s...Kaieteur News – Good Friday in Guyana is not what it used to be. The day has lost much of its solemnity. The one day... more
By Sir Ronald Sanders Kaieteur News – In the face of escalating global environmental challenges, water scarcity and... more
Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.
Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]