By Being Responsible

When I shared Man’s Search For Meaning with you last week, it was because I wanted to share my favorite quote from it with you this week. I didn’t want the quote to stand on its own--it means more when you understand the origins.

The original writing here comes from a blog I wrote in spring 2020, when COVID lockdowns were in full swing and we were all coming to terms with social isolation. It's an abiding memory I’ve polished up for you.

April, 2020

I think about this quote often. I even had it in my twitter profile for years, until a time came when I wanted to say clearer things about who I am. But the lines are always with me, and they remind me of things I occasionally need reminding of.

Because “responsible” is not meant here in the sense of things like resting enough or eating well. Of exercising or drinking enough water. Who’s checking all those boxes right now anyway, when what we know of the world is so off kilter?

No.

“Responsible,” in Frankl’s sense, means able to respond.

To shape a response and, in doing so, to find or create meaning. If we can’t change a situation, maybe we can change ourselves within it. If there is awful in the world there is, also, always beauty—that lasting dichotomy a part of being here, being alive. Being human. See all the examples, however small, on social media lately: the cheering caregivers, the art in public places, even the ubiquitous memes (the kind ones). They are all responses.

Today, my response was daylilies.

My Granddad was born in 1914. He’d have been around for the Spanish flu, though I doubt it was dire where he lived back then in rural Tennessee, in an area now part of greater Nashville. I could tell you all about Walter, my grandmother’s second husband, but this is about the flowers he grew to love, years after the sprawling backyard vegetable garden became too much work.

They were beautiful. Plants with proper names, that he bought from private farms or sent off for: they lined the backyard and he made signs for them by hand. When they grew large enough, he'd divide them and give the new ones away. When I bought a house, he insisted I take some home. And he dug them up for me himself, despite being 93 and slowed by fading vision.

I’ve had those lilies for a decade now, but had let their bed go the last couple of years. No reason, really—you know how it is. Getting it right again would require digging everything up, though: weeding and dividing and replanting.

But what better thing for a Sunday morning in isolation?

It took most of the day, and when I finished I knew two things: that Walter would approve, and that I’d send a picture to my grandmother. Her retirement community isn’t allowing visitors, and I knew seeing lilies thriving from the yard she left behind two years ago would make her happy (it did).

I’d done a thing for me that turned into something with meaning I could share. It’s fitting—Walter died in 2013 and that was how those lilies were, for him. They were a joy that he loved to share.

Responses.

They don’t need to be big, or brilliant. They don’t need to be for the world or even for anyone else, though I suspect that our efforts in uncertain times often bring us, in some way, back to others.

To connection, just when we think we’re alone. The world is funny that way.