Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November 1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, August 3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.
Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh.
I find myself a little weary this evening. Got up at 4:30 this morning to shovel out my car. It was buried under about a foot-and-a-half of thick, wet snow, thanks to the city snowplows. It took a good 45 minutes to dig it out. And then it took another 40 minutes to drive to work. Three cars in the ditch and one nasty-looking accident later, I was sitting at my desk in the medical office.
Half-way through the day, a coworker told me about the school shooting that happened today in Kentucky. Two fifteen-year-old students killed. Seventeen other people injured, including a special needs student. I haven't been watching or listening to the news today, so I haven't really heard many of the details.
As most of you know, I am not a fan of guns. I don't follow the logic of "solving" the gun problems in the United States by allowing more people to have guns. It makes no sense. And, again, there is going to be the normal dog-and-pony show, with politicians saying things like "Our prayers are with the victims' families" and "We shouldn't bring politics into this tragedy."
Two young lives gone. In comparison to other recent shootings, that figure is low. The jaded--or numb--will hardly pay attention to this day. It isn't a Columbine or a Las Vegas or Virginia Tech. That's the sad thing. Nothing is going to change. In another day or week or month, this is all going to happen again.
Read that passage above. Ishmael going to the Whaleman's Chapel, being surrounded by memorials to those who've lost their lives at sea, widows and grieving family and friends. As Melville writes, there is unceasing grief, unhealing wounds. Reminders that bring about fresh bleeding in broken hearts.
That is what every person in that school in Kentucky today is going to have to endure. All for the sake of a political ideal that really should have gone the way of the Dodo a very long time ago. Once again, every person in Washington, D. C., who has voted or lobbied against responsible gun legislation has to answer for this--grieving families, wounded lives, two more headstones.
Saint Marty is tired of writing posts like this.
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