And skylarks will not be silenced by order or deceit
Errol Alphonso, my friend and benefactor, rarely calls me. He did,
recently. He was gasping for breath and were barely audible. He called
to say ‘goodbye’. He said ‘I don’t think I am going to make it’. In what
he believed was his last few minutes on earth, Errol called me just to
tell me not to pick up the phone if I got a call from someone from the
home for the elderly where he is currently a resident.
‘I don’t want you holding the can.’
Errol pulled through. He had got a call through to a doctor who had
arrived not long after the line went dead. I was relieved.
Errol is the most e-savvy 70-year-old I know. A voracious browser of
the internet, Errol has the knack to pick the most pertinent and best
argued pieces on any particular topic. In many instances he’s directed
me to sources and information that I have found invaluable.
He knows words, Errol does. He is a word seeker. I sometimes feel
that he has dedicated his life to vocabulary-expansion. He’s interested
not in words and meanings alone, but etymologies and applications,
onomatopoeia and metaphor-potential.
He sends me words, almost everyday.
He sends me words and he sends me quotes. He’s a quote-giver. In
fact, as I was writing the above paragraph I received an email from him.
A quote.
'Do not interrupt the flight of your soul; do not distress what is
best in you; do not enfeeble your spirit with half wishes and half
thoughts. Ask yourself and keep on asking until you find the answer, for
one may have known something many times, acknowledged it; one may have
willed something many times, attempted it - and yet, only the deep inner
motion, only the heart’s indescribable emotion, only that will convince
you that what you have acknowledged belongs to you, that no power can
take it from you - for only the truth that builds up is truth for you.'
The quote is attributed to someone called Soren Kierkegaard. Never
heard of him/her. So I checked the internet. It’s a ‘he’. Kierkegaard
was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author who
lived and wrote in the early 19th Century. Wikipedia says that
Kierkegaard’s philosophical work highlights the importance of personal
choice and commitment.
Grammatical error
It’s the respect that I have for Errol’s intellect and integrity that
made me read the quote and explore further. He does that often. If he
finds some grammatical error in something I’ve written or suspects that
I have not mastered some grammar rules, he would send me a link that
enlightened me. Errol’s English lessons are quite charming. He slips
them into my inbox without referring to the particular error or rule. He
doesn’t tell me why he picked that particular moment to send that
particular link or message.
Errol is a craftsman, a refiner of the crude, polisher of rough
edges. This is why I always copy my articles to him when I fire them off
to the particular editor. If they are sent early enough, Errol goes over
them meticulously. There are invariably many errors. He picks them all
from the comma that should be semi-colon to the awkward sentence. If I
get this done quickly enough and he happens to check email, I have no
doubt he will send it back with lots of ‘corrections’. And it is not
only grammar. Errol makes things read better, by suggesting word
addition or sentence deletion. Thereafter, if he came across any
material that he believes would help enhance my knowledge of the
subject, or was capable of provoking fresh insights, he would point me
to it.
Personal note
His quotes could be random pickings, but I doubt it. Errol is a
teacher, and one who knows how to rap knuckles without seeming to do so.
When I started writing this morning, I wanted to play with a quote that
Errol sent me a few days ago.
The one I copied above is related, and could be seen as an
elaboration. Both empower. Both are humbling. And both speak to the
courage of a man who overcomes the constraints of situation by keeping
his mind alert and his heart young. I have never encountered someone
with so little to call his own who gives so much.
The quote I wanted to write about but which is an essay that has to
be postponed or left unwritten, is one attributed to Khalil Gibran, ‘You
can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who
shall command the skylark not to sing?’ That was a personal note, a
comment on a particular situation and a word of encouragement as well.
I will not write that article. It’s already been written. Errol
Alphonso cannot be asked not to sing. He was a skylark even as he
mumbled into a mobile phone what he truly believed were his last words.
Still is, I am happy and relieved to report.
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