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Blogs by Leslie P Garcia
Not Rose... 4/3/2004 7:48:16 PM
So what color glasses does a cynic look through? Not those fabled rose-colored ones, to be sure. OF course, calling myself a cynic is a little misleading, and I need not to be misled...even by myself.
Yes, I've stumped my toes a few times on obstacles I should have seen coming a mile away. Been stabbed a few times, around the ides of March and at many other times. In fact, I created the "Silver Knife Award," just for professional backstabbers. They take a lot of pride in their work, you know.
But realistically, who hasn't hit a wall or been betrayed? That's why the rose is so easily put aside for...well, maybe a muddy brown.
Yet not being happy-go-lucky, not being the half-full glass kind of person when we all know it's half empy, that has its advantages. Disappointment in the world is only half as strong when one expects to be disappointed--good Heavens, now I do sound like a cynic. Quick, where's the real me?
Hiding, I suppose. From a mother capable of smashing a baby's head in with a brick. Of killing her two children and leaving the third incapacitated for life. Should she have been convicted? I don't know. But her own fate will never change her children's fate.
Hiding, too, perhaps, from cowardice and from mortality. We've all known people who have faced enormous suffering, who have died by inches--bravely and heroically. My brother-in-law has been clinging to life for almost a year, my sister clinging to hope and faith. Part of me believes that I could never have the dignity and courage to get through such an illness, yet none of us are exempt from facing such a challenge.
In the bedroom, though, my first grandchild is cooing. If I get up and walk into that room, the glass will suddenly spill over. Laughter, toothless smiles, little arms reaching out...is there any goodness in this world as absolute as a baby?
Even cynicism wilts in the face of real smiles. Where are those glasses anyhow? I've got to see a baby. About salvation.
