To Understand

I've been slowly (very slowly) working my way through "The Crown" (as an aside, not the point of this post, I'm finding the last season to be lace with annoying woke-ness, but anywho) and William is returning to school after Diana's death. 

This William is understandably pissed, particularly at Charles. Watching their awkward interactions, it occurred to me: 

Parents are usually able to guide their children through their formative years because they can recall their own youthful experiences to show that they have been there, too. 

But Charles hadn't lost a parent. So he's rather useless. He can't relate. He can't understand. It's not his fault; unless someone has been there, no one can. Yet William is young, in the public eye, and he's grappling with grief seemingly on his own. 

He rebuffs Charles' lame efforts, exuding angst. Until his grandfather Philip steps in. 

Philip had a tumultuous childhood. His family was driven out of Greece when he was a baby. His mother suffered from schizophrenia and was institutionalized at one point (she later protected a Jewish mother with two children during the war, and became a nun). His parents lived separately after that. He was raised by his sisters, one of whom died with her husband and children in a plane crash when he was 16. In short, he was no stranger to loss and upheaval. 

William listens to him—because Philip understands. 

Keeping in mind that "The Crown" is mostly fiction, the show humanizes the royals, showing that their lives are not as glamorous as we would think, and they are more relatable than we would have believed.

Any father or mother could find themselves in the position Charles was in—clueless how to parent a child who was thrust too young, too soon, into tragedy. 

It reminds me of the book, "It's OK You're Not OK," and the author states therein that she was a freaking grief counselor, but when her husband died suddenly in an accident, that was when she understood. And that her professional methodology until now was a load of crap. 

Sometimes it's not enough to put yourself in another's shoes. Sometimes you have to have had actually walked in the same path a bit to understand. 

This is also a PSA: If you can't understand, don't say anything.

The Multiverse?

TooYoungToTeach insisted that I read "Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson. Always up for new titles, I plucked it up from the library, only to be disappointed that a lot of it takes place in World War II. I don't like reading about World War II. Or World War 1. Or war in general. War is usually off the table for me. Unless it's by Bernard Cornwell. He does war so well. 

Anywho, the heroine of the book is Ursula, but she is an odd duck. For every time she dies, the clock spins backward to the original moment of her birth, over and over and over.

Some timelines continue with near identical repetition; others vary wildly. But we don't see how those timelines continue beyond her death; we are just hurtled back again to her first day on earth. 

What we see is that one small occurrence can alter so much—it's novelized butterfly effect, or "Sliding Doors." 

It made me wonder if the point was that we live in a potential multiverse, where infinite permutations of reality play out. In Ursula's case, some strictly involve her, others involve world events. Like, saaaaay, how would the world be different today if Hitler had been assassinated in 1930? He's also only one person. But his elimination would have altered EVERYTHING. 

I also continued to contemplate if Hashem is overseeing other realities, other planes of existence. But this quickly got far above my pay grade, and decided to quit before I gave myself a headache. 

I concluded that while there could technically be a reality where certain mistakes weren't made, where all is different, as Jews we also believe that reality is intentional. If something was supposed to happen, it does. There is only so much in our control; Ursula is mostly not the driver of her own life; she is swept hither and thither by circumstance. Bumping into the wrong man (multiple men), for instance, by seeming happenstance. 

While have times in our lives when hashgacha pratis is seemingly so clear, other times when we feel cast about in chaos. But is the chaos also intentional, except we just can't see it? 

Headache brewing. Best to leave it be.