Immortality

S. recently lent me her copy of Khaled Hosseini's latest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. I looked forward to reading it for I love his earlier work, The Kite Runner, which is soon to be released as a movie.

I didn't get down to reading it until last week but the moment I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. Hosseini is a story-teller of the first water. Go. Buy. Read.

It is a heartrending tale of friendship and the ultimate sacrifice of love between two women.

Mariam is a harami (bastard) child of a rich but weak father and an unstable mother and has experienced nothing but rejection and abuse her entire life until her husband Rasheed takes a second wife, Laila.

Initially adversaries, the women bond when Laila defends Mariam against Rasheed's cruelty.

From this sprouts a kinship between the two women until Mariam saves Laila from death by killing Rasheed and thereby signs her own death warrant.

Mariam goes to her execution with" abundant peace" for despite her unpropitious start in life and its consequent hardships, she became a woman "who had loved and been loved back" and a "person of consequence at last".

"This was a legitimate end to a life of illegitimate beginnings."

Many of us yearn for immortality, to leave our mark on this world. Such ambition is ill-placed if we seek to build an edifice to the personage of I, me and myself.

That we are born into this world is already a sign that we are loved and matter very much to Someone.

If we realize the import of this and reciprocate by seeking to be made in His image and likeness; by loving all around us, giving in little ways every day, acting from a grateful heart, being the person each of us is called to be, then we will have succeeded in making a difference in the world.

Just as Mariam lives on in the heart of Laila, shining "with the bursting radiance of a thousand suns", we will live on in the hearts of those who love us.

Given the season of Advent we are in, it is worthwhile meditating on the words of Blessed Teresa and endeavouring to put them into practice:

"At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by 'I was hungry and you gave me to eat, I was naked and you clothed me, I was homeless and you took me in.' Hungry not only for bread - but hungry for love. Naked not only for clothing - but naked for human dignity and respect. Homeless not only for want of a room of bricks - but homeless because of rejection."