Living Past the Prologue

Whenever I'm faced with a problem or an experience that is less than ideal, I always try to find the positives. No matter what happens, it always seems like something good could come out of it in one way or another. The silver lining is always there, but not necessarily what I always want to accept. But what happens when something so unnatural occurs that the silver lining can’t be justified?

Obviously in life, the experience loss is an event that can’t be vindicated even if it was expected because of old age or sickness. As an English major, studying Shakespeare introduced me to numerous forms of unnatural death. I find his work simply amazing for his ability to capture the abnormal ways that death occurs and how it affects those left behind. What’s left to figure out from these events is how to continue on with life after we experience such unnatural deaths that make living seem unbearable. A parent should never bury a child and a child should never bury a parent. So how in that moment do we rationalize the death of a parent? Regardless of whether it’s expected or unexpected, how do we cope with the pain and heartache? The heartache is so excruciating it’s debilitating and renders the activities of life unbearable. While we’re stuck in a vacuum of grief, the world continues on without any way of us being able to stop it. The feelings of sorrow and numbness rotate without any end in sight. This agonizing pain in our hearts can’t be healed, but rather comforted by the love from others and the memories of that person that live in our mind and hearts. These memories allow our loss ones to live on through us. In a quote from “The Tempest,” Antonio gives an insight into life and death.

“We all were sea-swallow’d, though some cast again,

And by that destiny to perform an act

Whereof what’s past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge”

This quotes refers to the fact that we all sin and face problems, but some get a second chance, which allows them to create a new story outside of their past. Although not everyone gets a second chance at life, their second chance comes from those they leave behind who continue to live. Through this perspective and the fact that loss is something every human experiences, we can somehow rise from the suffocation of grief and pain. Loss is something we all encounter and through the sharing of mutual understanding, we create a lifeline for each other. We help each other survive when there seems no reason to continue. We are each other’s motive to live, and we owe it to those we lose to continue their story past the prologue.

Megan Gallagher