Recently we have been faced with more mountains to climb. My family lost a great son, brother, nephew, cousin and friend. Quite unexpectedly as he is too young and healthy to have been taken from us like that. His light was too good and pure. How can this possibly be? Another moment so glaringly out of order in the world WE know. In addition, we lost another friend who spent his life’s work making his living at our family business. Employees become family, like it or not. Seeing their face each time we walk in to the business we have known our entire lives as they represent the face of my father’s vision cannot be separated into simply “employee” status. Again, he was too young and healthy with a wife and children of his own to raise. This, again, was out of order in OUR world.
In the wake of these unforeseen challenges, I have no idea why but my mind came to rest on Achilles. I told you… I have no idea why. Achilles. You know… the heel. The Greek mythology character who was invulnerable to harm- save for that heel. So I began to read more about him and why has he suddenly become part of my thoughts. His mother, Thetis, was a sea nymph and immortal. She married a mortal. No immortal would marry her because it was prophesied her son would be more powerful than his father and no immortal wanted that. Why is he on my mind?? That he was invulnerable except for that one heel. It is speculated that his heel was what his mother held him by as she tried to make him immortal by dipping him into the river Styx, the river that divides this world and the one we don’t see. Forgive me if I get my mythology wrong, I am no Greek scholar. Well, so anyway, Achilles was for the most part immortal. He learned at a young age that he had two paths for which he could travel in his life. One was that he would be a great warrior and fight many battles that he would win. He was also enlightened that in that great warrior life he would meet his demise young. The other path was that he could go into the mountains and live a quiet, peaceful life and live long without the foreseen strife. Achilles, born with the heart of a warrior, as we know… and without surprise would choose the life of a warrior. There are several accounts to Achilles death. One was that Paris knew of Achilles weakness and thus directly aimed for the heel. In another account, it was that it was not known of Achilles weakness and was shot in the heel because it was thought that he would survive if only shot in such an insignificant part of his body only to discover later that this was the only vulnerable part he had. And so here I am. Why have I been so taken over by this story? As I have “studied” up somewhat ( I am a Gemini therefore my attention span doesn’t survive long in boring lore, so my study skills are comprised of scanning through as many google searches as I can stand until I have gleaned enough of what it is I think that I am looking for) I have had several considerations as to why this was laid on my heart. And here’s what I think…
#1. Thetis, Achilles mother, being a good mother like most I know, knowing the fate of her son, did all she could to change that fate. By dipping him into the river, she thought she had remedied the fateful situation. As a mother, you know that we tread only where angels dare to go for our children. Our love for them is greater than it is for ourselves. In one thread it reads this: “Achilles was driven to fight and doomed to die” “By attempting to make her son immortal, Thetis only succeeds in emphasizing the fact that he is mortal and can be wounded or killed”(cornellcollege.edu). But I think this is the line that captured what I was looking for… “No matter what version of the stories is told, Achilles remains a mighty warrior, protected by gods; but even the gods could not protect a mortal man from fate” (cornellcollege.edu). As a mother- and a widow- we will forever search for an answer to how these things could happen to us. I feel from this story that was thought to be written in 762 B.C., that motherhood and fear of death has not changed throughout time. Loss has not changed. There is nothing we wouldn’t do for those we love. And in the end… can we really change the fate of anyone’s life. Can we rest with the idea that when it is our time, it is our time. If an immortal mother cannot undo what fate has set forth… how could we as mortals? Is Greek mythology real? Does it matter? The fact that it was written down by someone to survive this amount of time is enough proof for me to speculate that these feelings existed long ago and remain so today.
#2. I thought in my mind there were going to be more #’s than 2 but right now this is the pinnacle of what I think brought me to this story. Achilles. We all have in our possession- within reason I suppose- an Achilles heel. Physically and metaphorically. Physically, we have a tendon in our body that connects our heel bone to our calf muscle called the Achilles tendon or also the calcaneal tendon. It is the longest and strongest tendon in our body. It is vulnerable to injury because it is subjected to very high tensions and has a limited blood supply. Metaphorically speaking, we all have something in our makeup that is vulnerable to weakness. The thing that will bring us down. The one thing that if injured will cause us to fall, experience pain and become possibly incapacitated for some time. Sometimes we experience things that we had no idea could bring us down…the unforeseen Achilles. Sometimes we live our whole lives trying to avoid or prevent the ONE, UNDENIABLE thing that we KNOW will bring us down. I believe I came upon this story because Achilles was mortal. Achilles had a choice to fulfill his destiny as a great warrior or live quietly, perhaps we would never have known his name. But in spite of what he learned, he chose to fight. He chose to become a person who would follow their calling. If you read the stories, his mother and father did many things to derail this prophecy. Achilles did what his heart told him. We can live in fear of our Achilles heel. We can live our lives trying to avoid what we think will be our own demise. Or we can live. It is thought that Achilles was unaware of his mortal weakness, otherwise why would he have not armored his heel? I think for the most part, we too are unaware of our Achilles heel. I believe that what we think could happen may not be the actual thing that is our ultimate doom.
#3 Throughout this process, there has been an undercurrent that has led me to this. You may or may not believe in Fate. Regardless of what we believe, things will happen all through your life. Good. Bad. Ugly. For some of us, it may not present in the form of losing a child. It may not come in the way of losing a spouse in the very prime of life. Some may live what I believe to be charmed in the way “life is supposed to go” where you have a lovely childhood, marry, have children of your own, raise a family and see your parents through their golden years and bury them after a long and wonderful life lived. Even so, you may face challenges that reshape your life. All of us undoubtedly will. Right? What is one man’s Achilles may be another man’s beginning. With all of the semantics aside… how I have come to this one conclusion- I really do not know. I think you might be scratching your head, like me, saying to yourself… How does this relate to that? No idea but this is where we are. š
Life is ultimately about change. Yes, we all have our own Achilles heel. We all also have a fear of it. And some of us are going to have to face that metaphoric Achilles heel straight on one day. Whether you knew it or not. But it likely will not be your own death. We are not equipped as mortals to actually wrap our minds around that. I, like many of you-thanks to social media- have read stories about people with terminal illnesses that have come to terms with it and face it with a grace and peace we cannot conceive. Proving, perhaps, that a metaphoric Achilles heel regarding our own death was in fact, not our greatest fear. Maybe we can take with us that our drive to change fate with our actions to avoid our greatest fears is futile. Let us live for today. Let the things that we thought would take us out become the change we must use to LIVE. Death is meant to change us. Everything in life is designed to change us. Some never see it and some never do. It is during these times that we are meant to look away from the world and into ourselves to emerge from the wounded Achilles heel and become something else. I say “wounded” because the definition of Achilles heel is this: “The expression ā Achilles’ heel ā is used till this day as a metaphor for vulnerability. We all have vulnerabilities and they often become exposed when we are in conflict. If another person knows our areas of vulnerability she or he may precipitate conflict by purposely wounding our Achilles’ heel” (cinergycoaching.com).
We are all vulnerable. We may all fall down at some point in our lives as a result of this vulnerability. It is not our demise. It may be the destruction of life as you know it now. It may be the death of that life as you know it. You are now faced with the choice… will you go on to become a warrior or will you retreat to the mountains? It is ok to retreat to find your own change. And you should. And we should not negotiate with anyone about where we will find ourselves to then eventually emerge. We all have Achilles armor. And we all have the vulnerable heel. I pray that we will all find the warrior inside to continue on after we have fallen to the foot of the mountain and again… find our way to the summit.
Thank you for coming with me as I worked my way through a thought brought about by the loss of my precious cousin Dave. Praying for my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and family as well as the wife and children and those mourning the loss of our dear friend and employee Ken. Peace be with you all. JHW+
Previously Letters to Linda 