When I lived in Berkeley during the
summer of 1967 the entire USA seemed to be speculating about the secret behind
the radio hit “Ode to Billie Joe,” a new song by Bobbie Gentry. The lyric tells
of the suicide of a young man who jumps from a bridge, though the song provides
only a series of tantalizing clues about what happened, and nothing of why. As a boy of thirteen, I hardly understood how
serious this was, though it certainly intrigued me.
Even at that age, I recognized that
when you have recently suffered a major loss, words intended to comfort you,
reassure, or cheer you up are not likely to help.
Then in 1976, a film called Ode to Billy Joe, inspired by Bobbie
Gentry’s song was released, and it proved a genuine tear-jerker. When I saw the
film at age twenty-two, I admired its visual and emotional realism, and the
beauty and sincerity of the young protagonists, Billy Joe and Bobbie Lee. Only,
not until recently was I able to view the film again, on DVD. After nearly
forty years, I find appreciate this beautiful film and its nuances as I never
could before.
For some critics, the uncertainties
of the song proved more evocative and haunting, while the film and the detailed
revelation of what happened and why, did not prove so satisfying. Personally, I
appreciated the film’s sweating, believable Southern characters, the drone of the
cicadas in the Mississippi heat, the excellent dialogue, and the tragic tangle
of events. I admired how the young heroine endures her terrible loss.
Unlike the song, the revelations of
the film are not ambiguous. Yet no matter how much information we may have
about the loss of any person, we can never know the bottom line. The ultimate
“why?” cannot truly be answered, even with apparent motivation and
circumstances. The complexity and subtle nature of human experience renders any
simple, linear cause-and-effect explanation no more than a rationalized
emotional placebo. The truth of our existence is profoundly mysterious.
Though I have had a near-death
experience (NDE), went to the “Other Side” and returned, I am not convinced of
what that really means. Concerning life after death and before birth, I am
agnostic. What I believe in is life. Still, human experience demonstrates that
loved ones who pass on may sometimes return to comfort their survivors, or
finish some interrupted business. To
doubt that this happens, in my opinion, takes skepticism too far, and dishonors
the meaningful experience of a great many human beings.
My belief is that mortality is
mysterious, that nobody knows for sure what, if anything, happens to our
consciousness after we die, or where we come from “before birth.” In the sense
of our evolving DNA and the stardust of which it’s composed, it seems we’ve all
been around in some form, all along and always will be. For insight, Nature is
always the best source, and if you observe what’s happening in a forest,
everything is recycling, all the time.
Of course, grief can be caused not
only by death of a loved one, but also by the end of a relationship, or by anything
you consider a terrible failure, a betrayal, the loss of a beloved home, or a
serious health diagnosis.
So, what do we learn from tragic
loss, in both fiction and our human lives?
You can never afford to take anything
that you love in your life for granted, not for a moment. Cherish what you
love, here and now: always. So easily we focus on the past, on what we do not
have, and may overlook the good things that are present.
In fiction, tragedy adds the depth
of realism to human experience, and produces change in the survivors, motivation,
or shifts of direction in plot and story, and character development. The
fictional Billy Joe, and his remarkable survivor Bobbie Lee have helped me to
clarify my feelings about these realities in my own life.
In life, nothing can mitigate the
impact of a tragic loss, though certain beliefs may provide a buffer from the harsh
realities. In fiction, the portrayal of loss has an ancient pedigree that goes
back at least five or six millennia to Gilgamesh and his lost Enkidu, yet it
still provides no definitive answers.
