Imagine Nothing

Dear Kate,

The ads are everywhere, or there's more awareness of them by someone who takes the bus and looks around, a series of What If? questions posted by the local children's hospital.

What if I didn't have to be brave?  That's the question on a billboard, asked by a sick child, and today is not the first time I tried to answer it.

So far I couldn't, for I don't really know what the question is getting at, even less do I want to respond to it cynically.  I encourage you (pardon the pun) to read the ads and tell me what I am missing.

My understanding is this: the questions are asking, what if one day medical advancement could eliminate the possibility of illness, particularly of the vulnerable and fragile children, wouldn't it be nice for that to happen, for us to dream this together now, and for everyone to contribute to the cause and usher in the eventual sooner than later?  Something more can be done so that nothing more needs to be done for anyone to face the pain, the sadness, and, yes, death itself.  We can win this together.

My son was saved in this very hospital, and every now and then I would remind him, for him to live better and give back the way he's been given, for him to cherish the gift of life, the miracle of "back to normal."  I do remember the moment I gave the surgeons the go-ahead to cut him open, a decision I until then needn't make and not since either.  It was a singular call to arms, to face our fear, and, yes, to be brave.

What if I shall never be called this way again?  What if I get lucky all 525,600 minutes of this year and then another 525,600 the next and henceforth for the rest of me?  What if I am such a powerful "prayer warrior" that I could conquer the ills of this world and correct also earthquakes, eclipses, leap years, and other errors of God?  What if to have an idea of God and trouble myself with the idea is to have special access to such power: to do good and do away, do more so to do less, for him to do for us everything so we don't have to do anything?  Imagine that, like Lennon suggested.

What if I never need to be courageous, not ever again, because God or science or whatever higher power is to vouchsafe my wellbeing for as long as I could keep my eyes open?  What if I don't need to be loyal anymore because there is no chance of me suffering any betrayal?  No need to trust, to hope, or even to love, because there is no more peril, no more longing, no more hateful beings in my world to challenge my plastic existence of ultimate self-sufficiency?

The only thing good about such a life, as I could see, is that I don't need to listen to that stupid Lennon song anymore.  Everybody can just imagine shit because there's shit no more.

Yours, Alex