I’m going to go ahead and warn all of you. This is probably going to be the longest blog post I have written in my two short semesters of being in Honors. Which is a small feat for me, as I tend to write at most three or four paragraphs in a blog post. But this blog post is very special to me, so I hope that it means as much to you as it means to me.
The House of Spirits, it is such a great book. It is so well written that I could not put it down. I am not very happy with the content. You all know exactly what I am talking about. There are several things that make me feel disgusted and mad. However, the end made me feel the opposite. For example, I was happy that Esteban realized some of the mistakes he made and admitted to them. The last two pages of the book were my absolute favorite part of the book. I love when things come full circle. Especially the line, “The first is an ordinary school copybook with twenty pages, written in a child’s delicate calligraphy. It begins like this: Barrabás came to us by sea…” (Allende 481). It put a smile on my face.
I was thinking of so many things to write my blog post on. I could have written a lot on the last two pages of the book. However, I decided on a random passage that I related to a circumstance that happened in my life recently.
The passage is, “She was convinced that he had died at the proper time, because no tribute could have been any greater than this modest procession of a handful of men and women who lowered him into a borrowed grave, shouting his verses of freedom and justice for the last time” (432). For reference, this passage is Blanca’s thoughts on the funeral of the Poet. You may be thinking, this is a random passage and why would you pick this particular passage? I will tell you in a minute.
When I read this passage it resonated with me and with a circumstance that has happened in the last week. For you all to understand, I am going to have to give some background. My dad is a minister at a church in our small community. My dad has been a minister at this church for more than 15 years. Because of this, my family has created very deep and special relationships with people of the church body. One such person was Mr. Bill Samuels or as we called him Mr. Sam. Mr. Sam was the type of person that had so much love to give and had a servant's heart. He was such a God loving person. Because of this, he did not like it when the attention was on him or if people tried to help him. He always wanted to love on others. Somehow, whenever someone paid kindness and love towards him he always managed to have it directed right back at that person. I am sure you already guessed what happened because of my tenses. He passed away last week from a heart attack.
So, you are probably wondering, how is that relevant with the passage mentioned above? Because of the situation in the world right now, our community can not have a funeral or memorial to him. If it was possible the church would be full of people to honor him. But, he would not have wanted that. For that reason, the passage, “She was convinced that he had died at the proper time, because no tribute could have been any greater than this modest procession of a handful of men and women,” stuck with me (432). We cannot have a modest procession but we all are having a memorial for him in our thoughts. Everyone who came in contact with Mr. Sam will remember his deeds forever. He would not have wanted a funeral because his life was not about himself. His life was about God and serving others.
He is how I aspire to be. To love God and others above everything. It will be sad going back to church when this is all over and not seeing him serve and love. He will be deeply missed but his actions will never be forgotten.
P.s. I commented on Ezra’s and Hailey’s posts.
P.s. I commented on Ezra’s and Hailey’s posts.
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