A Room With A View

A Room With A View

Ronnie Bray

I am afraid of heights, and so it was strange to me to discover that as the outside elevator on the Skylon on the Canadian side of the Niagara and Horseshoe Falls took us skywards, I felt no pang of fear even when I looked down at the rapidly shrinking ground.  I was a bit miffed at this because I wanted to overcome my fear of those contraptions, and to find that no fear existed robbed me of the opportunity to be brave.

Well, it didn’t happen and so I don’t have a thrilling story of how I overcame a lifetime’s horror and triumphed in mid-air over the demons that scream, You’re going to fall out and die! into the ears of the terrified who unwittingly and without malice aforethought get themselves into situations that they have spent years avoiding.  Instead, I have only a story of wonder to share.

The smooth, almost imperceptible movement of the Yellow Bug lift car reached the upper level restaurant without incident.  No glimmer of panic gripped my pusillanimous soul nor did my heart waver one beat from its steady rhythm.  Almost disappointingly, we were safely delivered, and instantly forgot the ride and its covert nightmare. 

Dinner was a superb buffet.  Having so easily escaped one terror, I was encouraged to live doubly dangerously and opted for the seafood salad with generous undietary amounts of glistening octopus, glowing pink shrimp, and almost indestructible Alaskan Snow Crab legs.  The addition of darkly roasted beef was a gluttonous not so afterthought.

Gay sat, appropriately, to my right, and enjoyed her meal as we exchanged life stories with a young couple across the table from us who, we learned, were one day short of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. 

Ahead of me through the curved window that ran around the circumference of the restaurant, I could see the bright golden sun dipping low in the sky.  Through the next two hours I plotted its course as it swung westwards and earthward changing into a fiery liquid blood-red disc before sliding below the horizon and lighting up the sky with cherry fingers of light before burning out in a final flurry of crimson and orange pulses to leave a world lit only by starlight.

An ensemble of students from a Canadian Seminary played and serenaded us with youthful but good voices.  There was romance in the air as I held Gay’s hand and enjoyed her smile as she talked animatedly to our new friends.  As I remembered how much I loved her and why, my mind wandered back through time to our first meeting and all the meetings since and the miles we had travelled together in our new life, and I was overtaken by a glow of true love.

We had both ventured much to be together.  Both of us had been changed by the experience of moving our lives in different directions and taking a risk on each other.  In spite of the confirmation we had both had that our union was right, we still had to take that walk into the possibility of failure, ride the Lift of Life with all its anxieties, and at least face the probability that we would not succeed. 

How strange that neither of us took occasion to express such trepidation.  Yet, reflection confirms that neither of us held any real concerns once we had discovered the quality of the other.  Having set our course, any fears that may have been entertained failed to materialise, and we always knew that our life together would be good and happy.  How good, and how happy, we could not guess.  Nevertheless, we have been blessed with pure friendship and with an enjoyment of each other’s qualities that are the bedrock of a happy and successful marriage.

Holding her hand and gazing on the darkening world as the stars appeared through the blackness that came after the sun’s pyrotechnic setting, I half-realised, half-remembered that to overcome most fears one has only to face them to see them disappear, and that a life that was guided by signifiers beyond this world but not outside our experience, was one that could not fail. 

Here was love, hundreds of feet above the crashing waters of the turbulent river, safe from the troubles and turmoils of life that destroy peace between husband and wife, away from the rocks of self-interest on which so many marriages fail, raised above ground level to be nearer to heaven and its blessings.  I squeezed her hand and smiled as she turned to me, squeezing my hand in return as lovers do. 

Then I thought of the loveless ones whose marriages are sad and sorry affairs with little approaching civility as their daily fare: those whose relationships are founded on mutual hostility and dislike, and who never know a tender touch or a soft and encouraging word.  The silent contemplation of their unhappy lot chilled the air a little and I felt sorrow for them and almost guilty that I enjoyed enough happiness for more than one joyful family, but found that it was possible only to share the secret with others, but that I could not make them a present of happiness as might be done with money, had that been what was lacking from their lives.

The secret, I determined, glancing briefly at the rainbow-coloured Falls and counting my blessings, was to be completely unselfish and to love absolutely, for perfect love casteth out fear.  The long-stemmed red rose that Gay gently caressed with her lips gave assent in lush but tacit beauty. 

Copyright © October 2000

Ronnie Bray

All Rights Reserved