Some Shine Like A Comet Across Entire Lifetime
They were so unimaginative in the end.
The 39 misguided members of the Heaven’s Gate cult who committed suicide in the hope of being transported to a next level of existence weren’t leaping ahead of humble mankind.
No, they died victims to mythic yearnings and ancient fears.
Since as long ago as the last visit by the Hale-Bopp Comet, humankind holds accounts of those who have looked at comets and seen portents of change.
Chinese poets in 1500 B.C. linked the passing of a comet to the execution of royal counselors.
Folk tales of the Masai of East Africa linked comets to famine.
With a consistency that spans thousands of years and millions of sightings, comets have been linked to frail human events that in the passing of time have been long forgotten.
They looked at the coment for artistry in life and missed the full canvas of what they had on Earth.
And at Rockwood Manor, a retirement community where many men and women still thrive after 80 or more years on this planet, the folly of the California cult could not be more clear.
“It proved to me that some fairly intelligent people can really be stupid,” said Arlene Konn, 81.
Arlene has lived in Michigan and Maryland and moved to Spokane when she was in her late 70s.
She speaks fondly of a wonderful husband. She has been widowed for 20 years and speaks with warmth of friends she met after her husband’s death.
“I’ve loved it all, every decade,” Arlene said of her life. “There is so much I would never have known if I hadn’t lived this long.”
Dorothea Weinman interrupted Arlene.
“She took the words away from me,” Dorothea, also 81, said.”If you say you want to leave this world at 20, that’s stupid.”
Dorothea recalled the day she and her late husband celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary back in Minnesota.
“The whole town came,” she remembered. That wouldn’t have happened if she had not lived on the farm and raised her children for all those years.
Fred Stanton, also 81, thought back on his life. He wondered how those who disparaged their bodies and sought refuge in a UFO flying behind a comet could not have imagined the wonder of watching their own children and grandchild grow up.
“My teens and 20s were just a struggle,” he remembered. “Then I went to war. That was just surviving.”
He went on.”I met my wife and we built a house together. She mixed the mortar and hauled the bricks.
Then, the three children came.
Fred and his wife watched them grow and develop, cried when they left the house, were proud parents when they graduated from college, found success and married. For Fred they still provide unending points of interest and conversation.
Even now. Even at 81.
Arlene, Dorothea and Fred harbor no illusions that a transition to another phase grows closer for them.
If they were ill, if their minds were gone, if they could no longer care for themselves, well, the idea of leaving this world clearly would be entertained.
“I have felt that I have done everything I have wanted to do in my life,” Arlene said.
Added Dorothea, “Sometimes I get a little depressed going down to the infirmary and seeing some of my friends lying there.”
And Fred acknowledged, “There is a psychological barrier that has to be overcome to live in a place like this. You wake up one day and say, ‘My God, I guess I am getting old.”’
Yet only last weekend, Arlene, Dorothea and Fred felt renewed zest for life.
They enjoyed a good meal at the retirement home then walked out onto the roof of the Rockwood Manor retirement community to see the comet in the western sky and a lunar eclipse in the east.
“Just seeing that was phenomenal,” Arlene recalled.
The comet’s tail, spanning millions of miles in space, sparked their imaginations.
They did not consider transporting themselves to the icy, desolate surface of that orb.
They were glad to be alive and viewing Hale-Bopp from Earth.
, DataTimes MEMO: Chris Peck is the editor of The Spokesman-Review. His column appears each Sunday on Perspective.