Legacy ●

And the doctor leans by the bed and says: You don't have much time left, maybe a paragraph, or two, or if God performs a miracle - three

The End of a Small Circle  (Source)

I dreamed that I was dying, and my life's work was on the verge of collapse. No heir, no disciple, not even a son. And it's better not to speak of the daughter. And everyone gathers around my bed to ask for forgiveness. Forgiveness for being awake while you dreamed and not paying attention. Forgiveness for not making you believe, and therefore you weren't who you could have been. Forgiveness that because of us you erred due to economic, practical considerations - and stopped. And my wife comes to my bedside and asks forgiveness for the terrible children, and the terrible children ask forgiveness from God who made them this way - and God is ashamed and doesn't know what to do, and I tell him it's okay, there's an afterlife! And God becomes even more ashamed and turns around and hides in the corner.

And to my wife I say sorry that I couldn't be a husband, because I wasn't a person. Sorry that I was a symbol. Sorry that I didn't earn and gambled on what I didn't have - and lost, because no one read. Sorry also to you, cursed children, that you didn't have a real black father, but a mouse with delusions of grandeur of a cat. Sorry that I disappointed all my teachers and all the rabbis and nothing came of me but shame, sorry that I hated the Talmud and prayer, sorry that I couldn't stop even when it had already become an addiction. Sorry to everyone, but I'm going to die.

And all the visitors crawl to my bed, and say sorry sorry that it's too late, and the doctor tells them it really is too late. And the children hear this and cry, and I tell them sometimes, when the failure is such that there's not even anything to learn, sometimes what there is to learn from parents: is what not to do. Don't do like me, live good lives. Don't fight, for heaven's sake, and live with people who don't fight. There are such people. Don't believe those who say couples who don't fight get divorced. They're jealous. I fought so much, you should know that for a fight you don't need two. One is enough. Life is too short to waste on moods. And even less so on someone else's moods. For example, your wife's. And my wife hears this and cries, but life is too short for that now.

The only thing you can shape to control life is habits, you will always fail and your habits will win, if you are good and have bad habits - you will fail, but if you are bad and have good habits - you will win. And your habits you will shape when you're not inside life, but from an outside perspective, engineer yourselves. And use aids. The only thing that works is not the software, but turning the software into hardware. And the doctor leans by the bed and says: You don't have much time left, maybe a paragraph, or two, or if God performs a miracle - three. Don't waste them on the wisdom of the round hole in the bagel. God can wake you from life, which is sleep in relation to death, at any moment. If only death were really sleep, as they say, because then there would be a dream. It is awakening.

And I say: Look, you scoundrels. Because I know you won't read, but look. I was several people, in the books I wrote. Because I lived several lives. Because I didn't know how to be one person. The moment I die, a great desire for what I wrote will begin. They will understand: There was something here. Not someone. There was something here more than a person, yes let me eulogize myself (my wife is invited to laugh as always!), because after all, no one will eulogize (certainly not as well as I can. Laugh at me!). And I cough (the end is approaching and wasting my last paragraphs. It's not fair but it's too late for fair). Understand, there was a school of thought here, ten books is respectable for someone who dies at my age. But it's also. It's also. It's... (the sentence gets stuck), sometimes the performance ends. The applause is pathetic, and who feels like an encore. Thank you very much, you were a shit audience.

And the children clap, for once in their lives appreciating their father, the critics clap (let them clap!), the editors wipe away a tear, the doctor is moved and supports my wife - who looks genuinely surprised and has no idea what she's doing in the middle of all this celebration. And doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, whether to be happy or sad, or just simply angry. And I look at her, I mean in the eyes, and I don't know either. All in all, I did a beautiful thing. All in all, maybe I did nothing all my life, but there is something great that remains here. Yes, the human spirit. And I too, in the end, as much as I don't want to admit it, am human. Maybe on the verge of my death I can finally accept that there is a human. A human in the bed. And that I exist (because anyway in a moment I won't). And that for a human - this is an enormous enterprise. In all fields of thought, genres of writing, disciplines. A legacy. A testament. And that I can finally part from the circle, and let it go on its way, to roll on, sometimes as a giant wheel and sometimes as a tiny hole in the world, but one that allows passage to another world. And that I - can finally rest. The burden was very heavy. And as it falls away, I feel my body is so light, that my soul rises on its own. And sometimes the end of a paragraph is also the end of life. God, of course, does not perform a miracle.