Mettle

Mettle: 

it seems an old fashion word now, mettle, being another word for courage and pertaining to a persons ability to cope with difficulties, an inner resiliency displayed in trying times. I'm not sure why the word came to me this morning, appearing as a subject for me to write of - and yet it's early morning, my pre-dawn writing time, coffee at hand, and I will write about mettle. 

whenever I came across this world, usually in works of fiction, paperback westerns, and the hero would have their mettle tested against a great adversary, an opponent with deadly skills, or a landscape of daunting challenge. It's an interesting word, and to me it seemed to be deeper than mere courage, that it was an inner quality revealed through adversity and not something that would disappear as trouble faded. For me - to have mettle meant that a person had an inherent quality of resilience, surfacing as needed, resting in the very fabric of their body until that specific time. 

of course this was a  romantic notion fueled by the stories that I had read as a boy.

but maybe not so wrong. 

perhaps this resiliency does reside in the deep fabric of our being, cellular, that it's more truly who we are, as if David in the marble, revealed by the situation that demands it, seen only as life carves us down to bare essence. I've had flashes of courage throughout my life, meeting challenges that called for me to deal with physical discomfort, rising to occasions of great fear and being able to move on, continuing with the task at hand. But my own mettle was only ever displayed as I was worn down by the suffering of others, of those I cared for most deeply as well as those I hardly knew, or didn't know at all but my heart was moved. Not only people, animals too, my mettle was shown through a kinship with life. 

that's how it works, our deepest truth revealed, again that bare essence showing through when called for - mettle. I think of my father worn down through life, 93 with congested heart failure, nearing a last breath, and how he continued to show his care for others, for me, even as I held his hand in a final letting go. His mettle displayed, but more so, my own demanding to be shown, that this moment called for me to drop all pretense of false courage and simply face it unadorned of any trappings, meeting my father purely at the level of his suffering. 

my mettle shown along side my father's.

David in the marble.

sculpted by our sorrow. 

~

Peace, Eric