Lately, when times got tough in my life, I missed the toughest soul of my clan, my maternal grandfather, who was long dead. I remembered his unwavering fortitude. I missed his counsel. With teary eyes, I beseeched him to tell me how to face life bravely. I wished he were still alive to tell me how not to be scared of life.
One day, while I was trying to distract my fears by going through old stuff, I found a really old book. I had never seen it before. The name inked in cursive told me that it once belonged to grandpa. Just like him, the book belonged to a bygone era. Being an ancient self-help book on life, it caught my interest.
I flipped through the brittle, musty, yellow pages. I noticed that grandpa had underlined some sentences in it. I paused to read them. “Never be scared of anything in your life,” read one. “Don’t go through life trembling with scare,” read another. “What is there to be scared of,” asked the next. “You have within you the fortitude you need to face life,” read the next. One by one, the sentences told me to be brave, while facing life.
Reading his underlined words, I felt as if he was conversing with me through them, giving me the counsel I had sought from him. I could hear those gallant words in his authoritative voice. The words spoke to me. I smiled at them.
Long after I had put the book away, I still continued to ponder over his underlined words. Suddenly, I had an epiphany. I realised that he had not underlined those words for me. He had underlined them for himself. Just like me, he was scared too. Life must have scared him too. But I had never seen him getting scared of anything in life. His scare didn’t match with his indomitable life. He surely masked his scare beneath a tough façade. He tried to face life bravely, despite his fears.
I realised that we all have our own fears of life. We are scared of something or the other, even the bravest of the brave souls, amongst us. Our fears lie buried in our minds, hearts, and souls. Our fortitude lies in how strongly we go on living, despite the scare. My brave grandpa had taught me a lesson in fortitude, even long after he was dead. When life scares you, you go on bravely, despite the scare.
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