The World is a Fine Place, and We Should All Hate to Leave It

Yesterday, a hummingbird hovered in front of me as I sat on our balcony and looked past the hanging baskets and across the valley at the hills and the mountains beyond the hills. As he worked the red Petunias and pink Sweet Williams, he moved to face me, his wings beating rapidly, creating the illusion of many wings. They shifted and turned, even as he hovered before me. I, too, felt still and quiet. He watched me for a long while, then returned to drinking from the cup of each blossom. Eventually, he flew away across the valley and toward the hills. For a moment, we shared an intimate, safe, and simple relationship. After he left, I started thinking about a passage from Hemingway I read when I was very young and recently re-read, the book still on the table beside me. It is a passage about presence and grace. At the end of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Robert Jordan is wounded in the aftermath of his mission to blow up a bridge. He is bleeding internally from being crushed when his horse falls as he escapes from the battle. As the fascists approach him, he waits for death on a hillside, struggles to stay present and aware, and has one last moment to reflect on life. “I hate to leave it, is all. I hate to leave it very much, and I hope I have done some good in it… The world is a fine place worth fighting for, and I hate very much to leave it.” In my youth, I yearned for this composure and state of grace in the face of suffering. Now, older, I have it and only regret I did not have it at twenty-eight, like the character in the story. Of course, Hemingway was forty when he wrote this, and I have learned it would be the rare twenty-eight-year-old who would have such grace. <a href="https://medium.com/@walaw717/the-world-is-a-fine-place-and-we-should-all-hate-to-leave-it-32824dc9a630">Learn More</a>