Repair the Pain

“This is tale
of pain and sadness
and ye' not read if ye' not love
for this is the tale
of a soul in anguish
of an empty voice not able to speak
of a sunshine without the sun
and among them all
a broken man”

http://sushank1987.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!A221FBDEE031069A!245.entry

            How do you begin to heal a spirit that has seen the worst in life? A spirit that has been stripped down to its core, pulled down to the deepest and darkest hole imaginable, and shattered into a million pieces of pain. Every person must face a time in their life when they feel their spirit is being stretched or pulled. What can we grasp during these times to keep our soul intact? It may be the people in our lives, or just the one thought that we are not alone in our suffering that keeps from the breaking point.

            In Bessie Head’s, A Question of Power, Elizabeth’s soul has felt and seen the bottom of the pit. She has struggled through and climbed to the top once again, finding her sanity but bringing with her a new light on the world. Her experiences with her visions and the fight for her soul between two entities (good= Sello and Evil= Dan), nearly cost Elizabeth her life, but “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”.

            One of the things that helped Elizabeth heal her broken spirit was the garden, mainly the Cape gooseberry. The Cape gooseberry is a non-indigenous plant that Elizabeth helps to cultivate. The Cape gooseberry comes from a climate with much moister and is transplanted to an entirely different climate. Elizabeth can relate herself to this plant because she too is trying to settle her roots and find her sanity. She can see herself within the plant and know she is not alone with her struggle. She is an outsider to her village, but as she settles her roots more and more, she becomes a part of the village. The woman of the village even nick-name Elizabeth “Cape Gooseberry”. Because Elizabeth has learned to grow the non-indigenous plant, she too learned and adapted herself to her new environment.

            Another factor that helped Elizabeth heal is Tom. Tom is and American volunteer. Elizabeth and Tom became very close during their time working in the vegetable garden together. When Elizabeth thought her life was to the end “Sello was pressuring her back into life. Death had the coffin. He was screwing in the nails” (187), Tom showed up just in time. Tom was a real person who really cared for Elizabeth, even with her sometimes erratic behavior. “He seemed to have, in an intangible way, seen her sitting inside that coffin, reached down and pulled her out” (188).   

            When the harsh realities and factors of life threaten to damage our most prized possession, our spirit, we must be aware of the thing around us that give us the strength to hold on. We can also help others who are suffering by just caring enough to give them a hand. It takes time and many steps to heal once you have been damaged, but with the help from others and especially the willingness to help ourselves, we can find the strength within.