The Appointment

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

THERE was an ancient Mesopotamian tale, retold by W. Somerset Maugham, which appears as an epigraph for the novel by John O’Hara:

“A merchant in Baghdad sends his servant to the marketplace for provisions. Soon afterwards, the servant comes home white and trembling and tells him that in the marketplace, he was jostled by a woman, whom he recognized as Death, who made a threatening gesture. Borrowing the merchant’s horse, he flees at great speed to Samarra, a distance of about 75 miles (125 km), where he believes Death will not find him. The merchant then goes to the marketplace and finds Death, and asks why she made the threatening gesture to his servant. She replies, “That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”

This story tells us of the inevitability of death, and the inevitability of outcomes in the choices that we make. However, there are events in our lives that we experience without choosing, but occur because of choices others make, or by the confluence of events, or by some transcendental interference.

For example, in 1904, Winston Churchill would not have met his wife, Clementine, if she did not attend the ball in Crewe House, which she was reluctant to attend, but was persuaded to attend by a member of her family. In 1908, they met again, this time seated side by side at a dinner party hosted by Lady St. Helier, a distant relative of Clementine’s, which led to their marriage on 11 August 1908.

There are people we meet, with no apparent significance, but who wittingly or unwittingly, open the chain of events that lead to the milestones in our lives.

For example, several years ago, in an attempt to push the approval of a request for endorsement, a person told me that he can add me to a delegation visiting the political process in the US. All I have to do, according to this person, is make an appointment with the Embassy, and tell them to add my name to the delegation. I was new in government, had no diplomatic experience, and propelled only by a desire to observe this important event. So I called the number he gave, which belonged to the Cultural Attaché, who politely told me that the process of selection for the delegation is the prerogative of the U.S. State Department and followed certain requirements and protocols. He was polite and requested me to spell my name and my designation at the agency I work for. I apologized for my temerity. That was a total embarrassment, which I decided to immediately forget. However, after a month, I was surprised to get a call from him, inviting me to spend a month visiting institutions in the US on a program that I myself had to design, in places that I deem relevant to my work. That was how I became an alumni of the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) and met a very good friend, Sr. Mary John Mananzan.

The experience was not my first brush with these kinds of appointments. I have learned that even people who deliberately want to harm, shame or play a nasty joke, can actually be portals to good things. In the same way, we meet good people under very good circumstances, who, wittingly or unwittingly, expose us to unknown dangers, or lead us to our own death.

We have a choice in some things that happens to us, but there is a vibrant dynamic among forces that interplay and impact on the choices we make. We had no choice when we were born, but do we have a choice in how, where and when we die?

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments