An ordinary person’s extraordinary courage

Photo by Kristopher Roller on Unsplash

Like most of what I write, I don’t know where I’m going with this. But I’m trusting. There’s an unction within me. There is an itchy uncomfortableness within me that is bursting to find expression.

We make the funniest kind of heroes in this life. Sporting champions, and those who do acts of valour, and celebrities with a story, to name just three. There is nothing wrong with hailing praise over the ordinary achievements that extraordinary people do.

But courage has much more to teach us:
an ordinary person’s extraordinary courage is breathtaking

It has taken me 48 hours to process what I experienced 48 hours ago; the consummate and unbelievably palpable tenacity of spirit of parents who have lost their young child; of family also who suffer for them. There are no words that can describe the experience of that moment, when we cannot possibly know what they are suffering, when we cannot possibly comprehend what they bear in their minds and hearts within their person. Simply existing, for people in this situation of loss, is pure courage. It is pure courage because they have no choice but to suffer for the love they have lost, and there is no option but to keep breathing, stepping, existing.

The fact that life goes on amid the torment of loss must be enough to inspire the rest of us to deep gratitude for their strength of spirit to even attempt to hold and contain what they’ve been given.

What has touched me most of all, as I reflect, is the sheer solemnity of a moment that was so heartrending that it blessed me to heaving tears. That probably doesn’t sound very enticing; heaving tears. Grief and loss have taught me to no longer be afraid of my emotions, and indeed to embrace the cavernous depths of them. It’s how the Divine meets me most. As I watched mere human beings, and some so young, be utterly broken by their grief, I was caused to brim over with an avalanche of cataclysmic admiration for just how vulnerable these people were. That we were trusted with their presence. And given our experience four years ago, I keenly identified with the existential encounter that none of us can prepare for and none of us know whether we will actually successfully meet such an encounter until we have.

Moments like I witnessed, and was indeed part of, you quickly realise that you don’t experience these kind of experiences very often. They almost feel unlife like. But it’s the opposite reality. They are too surreal because of how abundantly real they are. Not only is there such unfathomable grief, but it is on display, and the courage it takes to share reveals a vulnerability that the human condition rarely, if ever, is forced to endure.

Extraordinary stories of bravery are exemplified most in ordinary people displaying unspeakable courage where there was no choice except to step onward and through adversity, through which they, astoundingly ordinary people, ultimately become utterly extraordinary.

We need to reframe who the truly courageous are. The courageous act of a person prepared to lose their life in order to save other lives is without a doubt inspiring and the epitome of courage. But what about ordinary stories of extraordinary courage; those stories of people who must endure months and indeed years, sometimes decades, of the pain borne on the heart like a trophy that will be given in heaven one day? What about the courage of a child who endures weeks or years of abuse? And still hopes for better. What about the man who loses his job just before Christmas, then whose family loses their home, and through the pressure causes their marriage to fold?

These are the stories of courage that inspire me. Those who keep going and keep trying even in the throes of hopelessness and temptation to give up.

A journey of suffering teaches us there are mysteries and depths to life we cannot understand, and that acceptance, when we arrive there, makes us strangely grateful. Loss has a way of breaking off the worst bits of us. If that annoys you, hang in there. It’s a sign that the pilgrimage beckons and continues and unfolds at its own pace, none of which can be forced by us.

The reason those who grieve are most inspiring is they’re on a pilgrimage they would never choose to embark upon. There are so many times they hate this pilgrimage. It’s the fact that they continue to show up that inspires those of us who watch on; those of us who’ve experienced something of what they are now enduring.