Matters of Perspective, by Ben Jeapes

My uncle died suddenly last week. He lived in a special needs community and was almost immobile. Which makes how he was found even stranger: lying curled up beside his bed, with his slippers on and a pillow under his head. It was hard enough for him to get out of a chair. The thought of him lying voluntarily down on the floor, with enough presence of mind to bring a pillow with him, is too much.

But, I thought, it would make perfect sense if this frail old man who had lived with physical and mental disability all his life suddenly heard a soft, gentle voice say to him, “It’s time; just lie down and let me do the rest.”

Alternatively, as has been pointed out, he could have sat on the edge of the bed as a preliminary to getting in, and missed, and slid down, just being able to grab the pillow before he reached the floor. As getting up would have been far too difficult, and he would have been comfortably warm, he settled down with the pillow for the night.

The latter makes much more sense and is probably what the coroner will decide. But I know exactly which version I prefer.

Two different stories, which ultimately tell exactly the same thing: that an old man has passed on and is now with his maker. And that, surely, is the point of the story.

I don’t believe in truth being subjective – there’s no such thing as “your truth” or “my truth”. But it is possible to have two apparently contradictory things which, if you pull back a bit, turn out to be independent aspects of a bigger picture. This is how I square up anywhere in the Bible with slightly contradictory accounts of the same event – see especially the descriptions in the different gospels of the events between the Last Supper and the Ascension – and it works for our own writing too.

Decide on the true story you want to tell, and work back from there.

 

Ben Jeapes (www.benjeapes.com) took up writing in the mistaken belief that it would be easier than a real job (it isn’t). Hence, as well as being the author of eight novels and co-author of many more, he has also been a journal editor, book publisher, and technical writer. His most recent title is Ghostwriting Novels: A Guide for Ghostwriters and the Ghostwritten.