At some point in our young lives, we start discovering downfalls. I mean, when we are first born, we have nothing in us but pure, delightful wholeness of spirit. As babies, we love, and we seek to be loved. Our only point of reference was our own. And that mindset is one of innocence and trust.
And then we find things out. We get our lessons, some harder than others. The first one might have been when our stomachs were hungry, so we bobbledy-gooed some message and waved a hand. Well. No breast came with the warm milk. So we bobbledy-gooed a little louder. Still nothing. In a few minutes, we were screaming our heads off, crying for the gosh-darn milk. “Where in the hell is the boob?” we asked in our baby brains.
Yes. We started to realize that life could have some lumps.
Later then, we really started to see those bumps. The first time a playmate stole the toy we were playing with. Later still, we catch a friend in a lie. Or someone steals our bike from the front of the store. Or perhaps we get accused falsely of breaking the vase in the living room.
Then the bigger world comes to town. I don’t know how old I was or where. But I do remember finding out that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated. And once it was explained to me, I had no comprehension of how something that evil and sinister could have happened.
I can remember that news hitting me hard. A president? Killed? Yes, the first president to be assassinated.
I was reminded of all of this, because this is the anniversary of his death, April 15, 1865. It is also the day the Titanic sank. But at least that seemed accidental. President Lincoln’s death was intentional.
It was intentionally filled with malice.
Most of us know the details of his shooting on that terrible night. But once again, fate has a way of showing its face when we least expect it.
Take Ulysses S. Grant, for example. He was originally scheduled to be at Lincoln’s side that night. It was just a few days after accepting General Lee’s surrender when Grant heard from Lincoln. The president had invited his general to go see a play, the performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theatre. Grant accepted.
But Grant had a wife, and you know how marriage can go sometimes. She was not up for the event. Mrs. Grant had recently been the victim of Mary Todd Lincoln’s acid tongue. So Mrs. Grant wanted no part of a night on the town with the first lady.
Heck. What is a general to do? The President of the United States, or my wife. President of my wife? President or my wife? Of course, Grant backed out and gave old Abe some excuse. Grant left the president high and dry.
Lincoln had a surprisingly difficult time finding a replacement. He was turned down by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, and even his son Robert Todd Lincoln. Finally, Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris, and her fiancé, Major Henry Rathbone, accepted.
It turns out it was a bad decision. The lives of the Lincolns’ guests at Ford’s Theatre ended in tragedy as well.
Right after Booth shot Lincoln, he turned and slashed Rathbone’s left arm from his elbow to his shoulder. Rathbone recovered from the stab wounds eventually. However. He didn’t quite get over the tragedy of that night.
He married his fiance’ Clara Harris, in 1867. But his behavior grew increasingly erratic, and the signs indicated he was suffering from post-traumatic stress. Sadly, two days before Christmas in 1883, he fatally shot and stabbed his wife before stabbing himself repeatedly in a suicide attempt.
Rathbone, once again, survived the knife wounds. But he lived out the remaining three decades of his life in an asylum for the criminally insane. And we all know the fourth member of the presidential box, Mary Todd Lincoln, was institutionalized in 1875.
Whenever I hear the details about the assassination of President Lincoln and so many others like him, I am both saddened and scared. It continues to astound me that people can willfully commit such acts of evil.
People talk about how we become desensitized to such things because our world is increasingly violent and hard. But I will never become desensitized. Maybe it is that spirit of my younger self, wishing to hold onto the good. Because every time I hear about or see such an atrocity, it throws me into disbelief once again. How can a human spirit act with horrible intentions?
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“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi
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“You’ve a good heart. Sometimes that’s enough to see you safe wherever you go. But mostly, it’s not.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
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“Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to.”
― Terry Pratchett, Snuff
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Accepting the tickets was a bad idea
