Many years ago, there was born a small boy with a shadow. For as long as the child could remember he and his treasured shadow were inseparable. Wherever the youngster went his shadow was sure to follow, even during the darkest of nights, when though unseen, he felt its distinct presence. The dark silhouette cast upon the surface of the boy's realm of existence reminded him of his shadow's pervasive ubiquity, in a way which gave him comfort and assurance that all was well with life. After decades of shared experiences and misadventures, at which time the boy and his shadow had learned to live together in perfect harmony, to function as one in continuity with each other, the shadow was suddenly and inexplicable gone.
The child without a shadow was left to grieve its loss, in a world whose dimensions seemed suddenly alien and beyond comprehension. What used to be his shadow had now changed to ash. Life remained the same yet it became different. The sun had risen the morning after, as it had for countless dawns since the beginning of time, only to give way to nocturnal darkness with the rising of the moon. It seemed as if nothing much had altered in the rhythm of life, with its monotonous cycle of repetitive events, which spanned past and present generations through the millennia. Yet the boy's shadow was no more. Its absence made the sun look dimmer, the moon less enhancing, and the universe at large ever less meaningful. Robbed of his familiar shadow the boy sought refuge in withdrawal from an ambient he could no longer fathom. He was comforted by others, who shared his keen sense of loss, and whose love of him shielded the bereaved youngster from further estrangement. It was for them he resolved to live on without benefit of his shadow.
Shadows and voids are but two patches in the quilt of life. Such events, like others, occur far and in between leaving behind indelible mental etchings. Each person has his share of experiences with episodic encounters involving extreme pleasure or pain. The birth of a child or the loss of a loved one are the shared legacy of mankind, but others of a more individual nature prevail. One such traumatic event arises when a person departs his land of birth and leaves loved ones behind for a foreign land, in search of fame and fortune. In the transition a viscerogenic void within the self calls out for redress, as if to protest the hostile act of self-immolation. Like the boy and his shadow the gut wrenching act of causing physical separation is so great as to defy tears or consolation.
No matter the degree of professional or monetary success an expatriate encounters within his adopted land, deep inside his inner soul, the siren of the motherland beckons the safe return of her prodigal son or daughter. Most native born Maltese residing abroad will surely attest to an undiminished love of Malta bordering on compulsion. Time and distance seem not to affect the bond. Once again, invoking the analogy of the boy and his shadow serves a useful purpose towards establishing an important fact. Malta and its people are not to be kept apart. The same bondship is naturally true of other nationalities, but for the Maltese it holds more substance because of the island's diminutive size and tiny population. The imbalance adds flavor to a legitimate feeling of self-preservation symbolized by an "us against the world" syndrome.
Clearly, there exist voids within voids, in countless combinations and permutations. The types with the greatest impact are those which touch our spirituality. They are intangible, normally not of any material value, which can be weighted or measured as a loss in commodities or creature comforts. They are best defined as vacuous in terms of emotions. As such they abrogate numerative significance and decimal placements. Like the boy's elusive shadow they defy form and function, ever changing in proportion to peculiar perspectives and preferences, which may be likened to the shifting angle of the sun as it touches an item in constant motion. But exist they do, as surely as the boy's shadow profiled his path in life, transmuting meaning and value, until it was no more.
Paradoxically voids translate substance, else they would not accrue a finite sense of mass which define the boundaries of personal loss and grief. The forlorn youngster who lost his shadow, took his first steps towards healing and redemption of life, only after he came to grips with the sad reality of its irrecoverable loss. His sense of void set in motion the beginnings of recuperation in body and soul. The boy resolved to let go of his alter ego, setting it free to roam beyond the confines of earth. He would now wait his turn to join his shadow into eternity, a place where no transitional pain would ever again mar his existence.
E-mail to Joseph Vella: vellajoseph@msn.net
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