Outliving the Dash

During one retreat, a priest asked the community to reflect on the dash, on every tomb in the cemetery, found engraved between the two dates of birth and death. He said that embedded in those dashes are what those deceased planted and uprooted, built up and tore down during their lives. He continued saying that hidden in those dashes are the times they wept and laughed, mourned and embraced, fell silent or spoke out. The priest has his view points and I have mine. However, outliving the dash is a challenge, for sure. Naturally, most of what we do in life is likely to transcend into a plane dash, shortly after we physically disappear from the world. Does it mean that all that everybody leaves behind is necessarily a dash?

I remember the story of a blonde lady who complained to the doctor that wherever she touches on her body, it is hurting. She pushed her finger on her shoulder and screamed; she pushed her finger on the elbow and screamed even more. The doctor was watching her, quite astonished. Because she screamed even while unknowingly touching her wallet, the doctor understood that the problem is with her finger, not the body. Many people we see around try to outlive the possible dash in their lives, with choice techniques of their own. According to them, there are problems with every situation they figure out. They never admit that the problems are with regard to their attitude and purpose. Outliving the dash requires commitment, consistency and purity of intention. Whoever or whatever uncompromisingly insists on these values truly outlives the dashes in their lives. That is what the bronze statue of an aging dog by name Hachiko at Shibuya Station in Japan tells us. 

Hachiko was a dog owned by a college professor named Hidesamuro Ueno. Each day, when Ueno left for work, Hachiko would stand by the door to watch him go. When the professor came home at 4 O’clock, Hachiko would go to the Shibuya Station to meet him. Unfortunately, Ueno died of a stroke while at the university. Hachiko didn’t realize that he was gone, and so the dog used to come to the train station every single day to await his master. For the railway men, 4’O Clock meant that Hatchiko is at the Station. Hachiko’s love for his master impressed many people who passed through the station, including one of Ueno’s former students, who began to write articles about Hachiko and his remarkable breed. After 10 long years of waiting for his master, Hachiko died in 1935. Shibuya Station installed a bronze statue of the dog, to honor its mascot. Though the statue was melted down during World War II, a new version was created in 1948 by the son of the original artist. Values are abstract. Living a life of abstract values erases the dash and leaves a vacuum wherever they were. 

Joseph Mattappally