To know is to know that you know not!

My mother was dead sure 55 years ago that her predicament was induced by poverty. She blamed her father for not ensuring that education was given importance to the girls of the family.  In his case, he generally thought that school was quite a waste of time when precious time could be used in the workforce and the continuity of survival. She was crossed that her husband did not have the means to give her pleasure of sitting haughtily cross-legged on her throne as the mistress of her own home but instead had to be contended to make other people's home tidy and clean. She cursed the stars that she was born under that cast a spell that it was necessary to bring in a second source of income to her young family. 

And then that happened. It was a series of maladies that were destined to happen as she ventured into her family life. After nine months of carrying an apparently normal baby boy, she delivered a stillbirth! Scrutinising the lifeless stillborn child, she noticed dark marks on his cheeks and back. All through her grieving period, through the consoling words of her friends, she thought she came to learn of the reason for her loss...

Slapped Cheek

She remembered that day, vividly. The bus had arrived late, and she was rushing to her workplace. To reach her destination on time and to avoid embarrassment in front of her contemporaries and employer, she, in her obviously pregnant state took a short cut. It involved walking diagonally through a Christian graveyard. As fate had it, a funeral procession was in session. She felt a cool zephyr pass by, and suddenly she felt an intense feeling of apprehension as she approached the crowd. She passed it off as tiredness of pregnancy, the heat and her fast-paced movement. A few weeks after that episode, the mishap happened. Her world came crumbling down. The loss of a male heir to rewrite her life history came to zilch. No one could give her a decent explanation for her loss.

Thanks to her street-smart, worldly friends, there was closure. It seems that the Grimm Reaper, in his zest to recruit more souls to his side, was on a wild hunt at the heat of the noon sun. An easy prey was standing in from of him in the form of a gravid mother. All Satan needed to do was to give a tight slap on the fetal cheek and back and voila, another one bit the dust, another soul to the dark side.

Everything fitted in fine like lock and key. She had another reason to be melancholic about life. Poverty drove her to work, braving the sun and graveyards to make ends meet. And impoverishment made her lose her child. That was her understanding of her loss. Life moved on. She went to deliver three other children and the grace of God and her unwavering loyalty to the Almighty. 

In her mind, everything made sense. She, in her gestational state, should have known better than to venture into sensitive areas, like a graveyard where restless souls looked for company. What more, at the height of the time when the sun when it is at its peak above the head! It was her fault, she thought, but she justified her actions and the outcome of her fate.

Little did she realise, she never came to know until her second-born who later made it to medical school enlightened her on a condition called 'slapped cheek syndrome' or 'fifth disease' caused by a virus (Parvovirus B19). It was known to cause stillbirths. It was inconsequential, anyway. Much water had passed the bridge.

One does not have to know the truth, the whole and nothing but the truth to carry on with life. Even though it is unimaginable, life was still going on planet Earth when its occupants though that their planet was a flat pancake. Just like the explanation of interference of unknown forces only work fine for my mother. Many things were accepted with simple, which now seems mumbo-jumbo, explanations. She agreed to the fact that one cannot know everything and some stones are better left unturned. It gave her closure to meet another challenge in life.

Socrates was quoted to have said that 'to know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of real knowledge'. The problem is how far you want to go to seek the truth. Somehow, one has to draw the line somewhere, pacify himself with his limited knowledge and move on to do other things in life.

"What I do not know, I do not think I know"Socratic paradox.

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