“Caesar summoned the Senate to meet in the Pompey’s Theater on the Ides of March 44 BC for the purpose of reading a petition, written by the senators, asking him to hand power back to the Senate. According to the Greek biographer Plutarch, a few days before, the soothsayer Titus Vestricius Spurinna apparently warned Caesar, “Beware the Ides of March.” Caesar disregarded the warning:
“The following story, too, is told by many. A certain seer warned Caesar to be on his guard against a great peril on the day of the month of March which the Romans call the Ides; and when the day had come and Caesar was on his way to the senate-house, he greeted the seer with a jest and said: “Well, the Ides of March are come,” and the seer said to him softly: “Ay, they are come, but they are not gone.” [3]
As the Senate convened, Caesar was attacked and stabbed to death by a group of senators who called themselves the Liberatores (”Liberators”); they justified their action on the grounds that they committed tyrannicide, not murder, and were preserving the Republic from Caesar’s alleged monarchical ambitions.” ~Wikipedia~
The month is not over but I must talk about that which has passed. I’d never heard of the Ides of March – or maybe I had heard Mum say it but only now that I look back and think I realize “they are come, but they are not gone…”
A number of things have happened this month that I’m still reeling from. I did mention that some young gun-welding hoodlums shot my friend’s dad outside his housing estate and he died on the way t to the hospital. I went for the funeral very skeptical as I always am about this farewell humans organize for their loved ones. It was sad, as expected but there was also an air of pride of the man that had only soon after his 60th birthday left this earth. From his colleagues, friends, family, children and wife of 32 years… there was pride… for him and for them… that they would carry on with heads held high.
The very same day I heard of a distant Uncle who went home on the previous Friday and wasn’t seen or heard of all weekend. Family concern led to my cousin being sent to investigate his whereabouts but was to be met with the sad news that he died in his bed from a likely asthma attack and since he has been a bachelor to this day with no one to share his life with he passed in the confines of his home. The funeral was last week.
Mum’s been going through a rough patch as well. Initially I thought it was just normal business hiccups but the amount of things that were thrown her way it’s amazing how she’s made it this far. Fifteen years after leaving her Design Studio and starting a Photography studio. I remember wondering what was going on with the new office premises, expensive looking equipment and my Mum’s new found passion… and to this day I still wonder and silently admire how she has handled nay managed to run the photo studio, our lives and hers as well. I’m currently pulling my shortened hairs with my knuckles over small financial imbalances in my life. I realize more lies ahead and that only time and tide will prove my will and resolve to survive.
On this day as well I find out that a fellow blogger - as it is in the world of Bloggers we’ve never met but I’ve lived with him through his words and images – is bringing it all to an end. That I think takes guts to let go of something that helps release your words, images, thoughts and emotions to the greater harsher world… I admire him for starting out and I admire him for finishing up and moving on.
Moving on… that’s the thing we should all learn to do. I read somewhere today that you should always have your resignation letter in your office drawer… this is to keep you on your toes, to remind you to live for your passion and not the drudgery of the rat-race that most of us are caught up in. That you should also sit and write your epitaph… spooky, as it is it releases you to live… I wrote mine some years back, I can’t remember all the words that I put down but what stood out is that I wanted to be remembered as a human… as a daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend… most of all a friend to all that I am blessed to meet… blessed to share “this little light of mine…”
“Beware the Ides of March…” Nay, Beware of myself/yourself and how you/we/me cease to dream… to desire… beware of that.
