The Meaning of Life

When I was a young mother and my sister was living far away (my brother-in-law was in the Navy for 4 long years), we wrote letters to one another. And it was through those letters that I got to know Nancy as someone other than simply my "kid sister."

Mostly, we wrote about the quotidian events of our lives. But every once in awhile we'd wax philosophical.

There wasn't such an expression as thread then (other than that with which you sewed on a button), but for a long while we had a thread on what became known to us as "POL" -- the Purpose of Life. We had our suppositions and theories, but we never came to a firm conclusion.


Many years later, I came across a brief story called "The Meaning of Life," and I was so moved by it that I copied it and saved it in a folder on my computer labeled Stories. Here it is, exactly as I found it:

The Meaning of Life
by Frank Davenport

"Are there any questions?" An offer that comes at the end of college lectures and long meetings. Said when an audience is not only overdosed with information, but when there is no time left anyhow. At times like that you sure do have questions. Like, "Can we leave now?" and "What the hell was this meeting for anyhow?" and "Where can I get a drink?" The gesture is supposed to indicate openness on the part of the speaker, I suppose, but if in fact you do ask a question, both the speaker and the audience will give you drop-dead looks. And some fool--some earnest idiot--always asks. And the speaker always answers. By repeating most of what he has already said.

But if there is a little time left and there is a little silence in response to the invitation, I usually ask the most important question of all: "What is the meaning of life?"

You never know - somebody may have the answer, and I'd really hate to miss it because I was too socially inhibited to ask. But when I ask, it's usually taken as a kind of absurdist move - people laugh and nod and gather up their stuff and the meeting is dismissed on that ridiculous
note.

Once, and only once, I asked the question and got a serious answer. One that is with me still.

I went to an institute dedicated to human understanding and peace on the isle of Crete. At the last session on the last morning of a two-week seminar on Greek culture, led by intellectuals and experts in their fields, Alexander Papaderos rose from his chair at the back of the room and walked to the front, where he stood in the bright Greek sunlight of an open window and looked out. We followed his gaze across the bay to the iron cross marking a German cemetery from WWII. He turned and made the ritual gesture: "Are there any questions?"

Quiet quilted the room. These two weeks had generated enough questions for a lifetime, but for now there was only silence. "No questions?" Papaderos swept the room with his eyes. So, I asked. "Dr. Papaderos, what is the meaning of life?" The usual laughter followed, and people stirred to go. Papaderos held up his hand and stilled the room and looked at me for a long time, asking with his eyes if I was serious, and seeing from my eyes that I was.

"I will answer your question." Taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, he fished into his leather billfold and brought out a very small round mirror, about the size of a quarter. And what he said went like this:

"When I was a small child, during the war, we were very poor and we lived in a remote village. One day, on the road, I found the broken pieces of a mirror. A German motorcycle had been wrecked in that place. I tried to find all the pieces and put them together, but it was not possible, so I kept only the largest piece. This one. And by scratching it on a stone, I made it round.

I began to play with it as a toy and became fascinated by the fact that I could reflect light into dark places where the sun would never shine - in deep holes and crevices and dark closets. It became a game for me to get light into the most inaccessible places I could find. I kept the little mirror, and as I went about my growing up, I would take it out in idle moments and continue the challenge of the game. As I became a man, I grew to understand that this was not just a child's game, but a metaphor for what I might do with my life.

I came to understand that I am not the light or the source of the light. But light - truth, understanding, knowledge - is there, and it will only shine in many dark places if I reflect it. I am a fragment of a mirror whose whole design and shape I do not know. Nevertheless, with what I have, I can reflect light into the dark places of this world - into the black places in the hearts of men - and change some things in some people.

Perhaps others may see and do likewise. This is what I am about. This is the meaning of my life."

And then he took his small mirror and, holding it carefully, caught the bright rays of daylight streaming through the window and reflected them onto my face and onto my hands folded on the desk.

Much of what I experienced in the way of information about Greek culture and history that summer is gone from memory. But in the wallet of my mind I carry a small round mirror still.
Are there any questions??

It seems to me that there is a desperate need for human understanding and peace in these dangerous days, and that we all might do well to pose the question of The Meaning of Life to someone, and then to listen carefully to the answer.

So I ask you, what is the Meaning of Life?

Betsy, Meet Teddy

Christmas is coming (after all, the first day of autumn is only hours away), so I wasn't surprised to hear there's a new teddy bear on the market. But I was surprised to learn that there's more to this guy than just a winsome face. He comes with a remote control. When you push it, he farts.

For those who are wary of remote-action toys, there's a stripped-down model with a belly button which, when pushed, achieves the same bodily emission. In fact, a cursory internet search turned up no less than 30-some farting teddies.

My first reaction was disdain: why can't toy manufacturers be content to produce bears made just for cuddling? But then I remembered the doll I received for Christmas when I was about four years old. She came with her own plastic baby bottle. With Mother's permission, the bottle could be filled with water and fed to baby via a small opening in her round pink lips. And, in the blink of an eye, her diaper was wet. I still remember the wicked thrill of discovering the (anatomically incorrect) exit hole in Betsy Wetsy's bottom.

So I guess there's nothing much to scoff at, after all. Water. Gas. This, too, shall pass.

Filial Affection

This past weekend, a phone call brought me news of the death of a man who had been our next-door neighbor in Glenside for more than a quarter century. Lester E. Sherry was in his nineties when he went at last "to the Lord," as he would have put it, for he was a deeply religious man.

A reluctant resident of the nursing home in Cape May, NJ in which his wife had died of Alzheimer's some years before, Les grieved the loss of his independence to the end. Just a few weeks ago, he told me with abject sorrow about the recent sale of his automobile and how diminished he felt, having to surrender that classic male symbol of freedom.

I believe that Les was more than ready to go to be reunited with his beloved Virginia. But I am surprised by my unreadiness to lose him as an earthly friend. That is because he was more than a friend to me -- I regard him with filial affection.

Because my own father died abruptly of a heart attack when I was 23, I welcomed Les' presence in our family life as my girls were growing up -- he took an interest in their school activities; he watched them mastering the mysteries of keeping a two-wheeler straight and steady; he conversed with them in a way that showed genuine interest in what they had to say.

He was a father-figure to my husband as well -- sharing the wisdom he'd gained from a lifetime career with Prudential Insurance Company and putting ultimate trust in Bob's knowledge of cars -- he once allowed him to cut a hole in the console of his brand-new Mercury to install some sort of radio component!

Les took me to the tennis courts at Abington High School and did his best to make a Billie Jean King out of me (alas, he couldn't). He loved the sport (and he especially delighted in besting our friend Father Mulligan at the net).

In recent years, he was able to console me in my new widowhood in a way no other man could. We had many a long-distance phone conversation, and I never tired of listening to his crisp diction, his measured thoughts, his fond memories of Bob and all the good times we'd had when we were neighbors. Each time I said goodbye, I always added, "I love you."

There was such a lot to love about Les Sherry.