Sad....Sad...Sad
I read somewhere that famous people were once asked what they thought was the saddest word....
Oscar Hammerstein II said: But
Writer John Dos Passos chose: Forlorn
Harry Truman said: It might have been....
Yes they are all certainly very sad and totally devoid of life and hope... Pearl S Buck once wrote: When hope is taken away from the people, moral degeneration follows swiftly after...
But to me, the saddest word I can think of is ABANDONED
ALL its synonyms go through my heart like a spear making it bleed....
Discarded... tossed away... forsaken... deserted....renounced... disowned...forsaken...
In each of these words is a such a profound sense of hurt, hopelessness, loneliness and despair that it is soul-shattering.
Its not just about derelict houses .... they too make me horribly sad... all the blood sweat and tears that went into building it...the memories etched into every plank, the sounds and smells that once permeated its walls, the garden left to grow wild where once there might have been flowers, shrubs, potatoes and carrots, the bench where they might have sat on balmy summer evenings.....all abandoned.
What saddens me the most are children all over the world - who are just abandoned... by the devastation of war, by the careless heartlessness of adults, by poverty and other socioeconomic causes, by drug abusers unable to care for their children .....and a plethora of other scenarios that paint such heart wrenching pictures in my mind. There is within this act, not just words such as illegal or criminal or malum in se but also such pure malicious evil. Although abandonment has been there in many cultures and tales and legends (Oedipus, Snow White to name just two) it is nevertheless the cruelest of acts....
Abandoned Children is the saddest "phrase" I can imagine....
Signing off for now.
C.S!
(Cresat Scientia)
