Last week I saw my brother for the last time in a fairly grim hospital room in Houston, Texas. He was in great pain, and suffering in several other ways I will not describe. But he was wholly conscious and in command of his wits, and able to speak clearly. We both knew it was the last time we would see each other, though being Englishmen of a certain generation, neither of us would have dreamed of actually saying so. We parted on good terms, though our conversation had been (as had our e-mail correspondence for some months) cautious and confined to subjects that would not easily lead to conflict. In this I think we were a little like chess-players, working out many possible moves in advance, neither of us wanting any more quarrels of any kind.
". . . and suffering in other ways I will not describe." I understand and respect the reticence of the Englishman, a reticence we Americans could use a little more of; but that is one teaser of an independent clause! One wants to know about that mental or spiritual suffering, and not just out of idle curiosity. The moment of death is the moment of truth. The masks fall away. No more easy posturing as in the halcyon days of health and seemingly endless invincibility. In wine there is truth, but in dying even more. Ego-display and cleverness are at an end. What was always hollow is now seen to be hollow. Name and fame for example. At the hour of death one hopes for words from the dying that are hints and harbingers and helps to the living for their own preparation for the hour of death.
Peter's chess image is a curious one. We work out many possible moves in advance the better to inflict material loss, or time-trouble, or checkmate upon our opponents. We are cautious, not so as to avoid conflict, but to render it favorable to ourselves. On second thought, however, the chess comparison is apt: in the end the brothers circled around each other 'keeping the draw in hand.' Each could then withdraw from the fray feeling neither that he had lost to the other nor that he had bested him.
I am struck once again by the insignificance of blood-relations. These two brothers in the flesh came to inhabit different planets. As one of my aphorisms has it, consanguinity is no guarantee of spiritual affinity.
A second case in point: the flaming atheist David Stove and his Catholic son.
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