In childhood
the first seeds of taste are planted, and it seemed to me as a boy that
Treasure meant possessions, material wealth, mainly as a result of Treasure
Island being read to me by my father. The idea of treasure being holdable in a
buried chest found only with the right map stuck with me until my father died
in July 1953 during the night of an unexpected fatal heart attack. Then I began
to realise that TREASURE we value most is not a jewelled fate, but much more
about the people we love. It was not until I went on in my late teens to study
David Hume and other philosophers as part of my university undergraduate course
that I found this realization described so well by David Hume facing the
inevitability of death considered in similar circumstances. This week I
discovered that Oliver Sachs (in his recent article for The New York Times)
finds Hume equally helpful:
He writes about
decisions he has made since a diagnosis of untreatable liver cancer - "I
have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am
encouraged by the words of one of my favourite philosophers, David Hume, who,
upon learning that he was mortally ILL at age 65, wrote a short autobiography
in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.” 'I now reckon
upon a speedy dissolution,' he wrote. 'I have suffered very little pain from my
disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of
my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the
same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.' "
I do not
believe I have ever properly "got over" the shock of the death of my
treasured father all those years ago, and I hope all of the "best
bits" of him live on in me - our children are our major gift (or curse) to
posterity, and bringing up our son (my stepson) is certainly what I count my
own major achievement. I wish that our daughter, Rebecca, had lived more than
her mere four years, as Rebecca was certainly our second treasure after Damian.
To complete my
homily, real treasure in life I feel is NEVER to suffer "a moment's
abatement of (one's) spirits", though the four or five years after
Rebecca's death in 1985 were very hard to bear, and not everyone is fortunate
to accept from childhood that life always appears too brief when we lose those
we love.
My father rose
to be a Warrant Officer First Class in the RAF of the 1930s and 1940s and I try
to live by his motto - Onward and Upward. What I treasure most is the life that
he and my mother gave me.
CJH February 2015