Our life changes all the time. We're not the same people we were last year or the year before it. And we can never say for sure what brought those changes - maybe we were victims of circumstances, or it was something more innate that's in our spirits, rebelling to surface and show itself. But sometimes Change swoops in so suddenly, it shakes and shifts your world, all without your consent, and you can do nothing but submit to its unrelenting force. And when it's done it's purpose, it leaves you alone - but not before making a mark. Time would pass by and you could say you've made the best of it - that your wounds have healed and the scars are no longer visible, but you're not all the same inside.
And this very thought was best described in "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. When I'd first come across it, probably on Goodreads, I thought it was another of those abstract, Booker-Prize-material books that I could never quite get the hang of. But I was intrigued by the excerpts and decide to read it. And a good decision that was. I will not summarize or review it at length (both are on Wikipedia already and also, I'm lazy) but I'll give you enough to understand the setting and mood of my Moment in this book:
Aibileen, in the movie adaptation (The book was better !! )
Aibileen is an illiterate, black nurse in Mississippi in the 1960s, and one of the three narrators in the book. She had lost her son in an accident. And since it was a time when black people were still under oppression from slavery, the accident was not without bias. After a hard day's work, the tired skinny boy in his 20s had fallen off the loading dock onto the drive, and the driver of a tractor trailer, who hadn't seen him, ran over before he could move out of the way. The white driver then dumped his body in front of the hospital for "colored" people, and drove off. And the boy didn't make it.
"That was the day my whole world went black. Air look black, sun look black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls a my house. Minny came ever day to make sure I was still breathing, feed me food to keep me living. Took three months fore I even look out the window, see if the world still there. I was surprise to see the world didn't stop just cause my boy did.
Five months after the funeral, I lifted myself up out a bed. I put on my white uniform and put my little gold cross back around my neck and I went to wait on Miss Leefolt cause she just have her baby girl. But it weren't too long before I seen something in me had changed. A bitter seed was planted inside a me. And I just didn't feel so accepting anymore."
(Note: It was a nice ploy of the author to write Aibileen's narrative just as how her character would - in the vernacular.)
Sometimes, when there’s a life-changing turn of events, the more unaccepting of us say “Why? Why me?” But for those who stoically come to terms with their destruction as a cruel twist of fate or the “ways of the world”, they may bury their emotions but can’t hide them forever. It’s as if we’d turned our suppressed anger on the unfairness of it all and our inability to control our own fate – to go back in time and change that one moment that brought our world tumbling down – inwards onto ourselves. And so our hearts become colder. We are less dazzled by the light and glitter, and become friendlier with shadows. We may move on, show the world we’re alive and well, but are wary and resentful inside. The feelings well up, like a bitter seed growing, until the day we can no longer pretend. And this is exactly what Aibileen’s simple, yet powerful words convey.
Much later, I couldn't help thinking that Bruce Wayne had a "bitter seed" in him too, that drove him to become Batman. He never forgave himself for his parents' death; had he endured his fear of bats that night, they might still be alive. Unable to move on, he bid his time seeking revenge on their killer, ready to become a killer himself, and an opportune moment presented itself nearly 2 decades later - and well, everyone knows what happened after that. The hero that he became, to rebuild his parents' city and restore its former glory - it was not because of some superhuman strength, but because of a vulnerability - that one incident, unforeseen, and the overwhelming guilt that came with it, affected him and his entire life. It would only seem fitting that the symbol he chose to plant fear in the hearts of his enemies was the very thing he was afraid of, the fear of which led him to blame himself for the death of his parents. Bitter seeds come from change; they grow inside us and bear fruit a long time after, and make us do things that change the course of our lives all over again.
