The road ahead must be travelled

Dear Editor,

I thank Brother Samuel Hinds for his thoughtfulness and graciousness (‘Keep your eye on a bright future’), and for the taking the time to share. A similar embrace is extended to Gordon Forte (‘The despair must be a generational thing’) and P Harris (‘There is a way’), all of SN’s issue dated October 9.

To these citizens, these brothers and elders, I hear you. I believe, for that is why I am here; still here. I don’t want to be elsewhere, so I continue through the anguish and enduring struggle, because it is not within to retreat, to surrender. Failure is not an option, even though my own vision blurs and the strands of expectations grow thin and taut. I must persevere.

As I persevere, I exhort others to feel the pain on my lips, and observe the sparkle in the yes. They are tears, tears for what we have become. I can go, but I stay. Bury my heart here amidst the wounded bleeding pastures of sand and mud and I will be happy. Yes, there is still such a thing as love for country; love for country more than mammon. Some things are sacred. Like P Harris, I think that there can be a way; and I see that change will come, has to come. It must come if only for our own survival, and our very sanity. Yes, I do confess to being steeped in the rivers of another time. I daresay that, like Achilles, there is a powerful vulnerability. Forgive the hubris, please.

It is why I cannot deny the evidence of mine eyes; why I must be true to the wars within, wars generated by those that rage without.

If those previous thoughts and words, as publicly expressed, can evoke such deep sentiment then, in turn, I must recognise when the echoes of those thoughts and words fade, the road ahead must be travelled. And travel we shall, one crawling, hurting, hoping step after another towards what beckons, towards what awaits. Like Elder Hinds said, it could be bright.

Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall