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A song popped into my mind the other day. It was on the radio when I was young and prattled its way through my brain many times back then.
I knew then that it was a sad song. But I never stopped to fully hear the lyrics. I did the other day...
It's Gilbert O'Sullivan's "Alone Again (Naturally)."
In the first verse, the writer is ready to throw himself off of a tower because his bride-to-be stood him up at the altar....leaving him alone.
In the second, he talks about God deserting him in his hour of need...leaving him alone.
The third verse goes like this:
Now looking back over the years
And whatever else that appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn't understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start with a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day
Alone again, naturally
There is a YouTube video that puts this song to pictures. I'm not adding the link because I don't want to depress you completely. But it depicts a number of people who in the pictures are very much...alone.
I began to think about how many people feel that way. I wonder how many of our colleagues, our coworkers do. How many people feel alone and hurt and sad. People walking the streets of our cities, driving hay trucks in our towns, sitting in a crowded cafeteria at school, working in a bustling office.
The world spinning around them, while they do what they can to function in it.
I think this is the case more often than we think. People go through hells that we know nothing about and feel things that we cannot possibly comprehend.
And then maybe we form opinions about them without understanding, come to conclusions without knowing.
We make snap judgments about them. I'm not sure what my point is in this article except to say that maybe instead of our knee jerk reaction being to judge harshly, it should be to give people the benefit of the doubt when we don't fully understand them.
Maybe empathy. Maybe we should err on the side of compassion.
Everyone has secret battles from time to time...some more traumatic than others. These hidden wars inform our personalities and at times our actions in day-to-day life. Others around us then judge those actions...seldom with understanding.
It's never through the sheen of a book that we discover the substance within.
There is a lyrical interlude in the song that says:
It seems to me that there are more hearts
broken in the world that can't be mended
Left unattended
What do we do? What do we do?
That is, indeed, the question.
Maybe the answer is we become cautious with judgments...and where we can...we lend a compassionate hand.
All of us need it from time to time. Don't deny it. All of us do.
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