Memorial Day

I had the opportunity and great pleasure to watch the movie Invictus. I saved this for Memorial Day.

It is a moving and powerful movie. The Invictus poem meant just as much to Mandela as it did to Clint.

While watching the movie I was really moved when François Pienaar visits the prison Mandela was in for all those years. I cried as I watched François standing in the cell that Mandela was in, he thought about the poem and how it helped Mandela get through those hard times.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley


As François pictured where Mandela laid and sat in prison, I pictured my friend Clint. It took me back to a memory. It was Clint, Kelly and I at the Huntsman Cancer Unit. Clint was sitting in a chair next to his hospital bed, blankets covering him, tubes going all through him for the chemo, and he had this quote book that Casey (his brother) had made for him. Kelly told him to read Invictus aloud. I really hadn't heard the poem until that day. As Clint read the words of the poem aloud, his lips trembled, his hands shook, and he wept. I will never forget the tears falling down my face as he read it aloud to Kelly and I.

This poem means a great deal to Clint. The poem really speaks to me now. I would like to memorize it and repeat it every morning to myself.

Just like the movie Invictus, it is amazing how much one poem and one man can inspire. Thank you to my best friend Clint. What a great Memorial Day gift!

At Clint's grave, I left him the Heroes symbol I have worn around my neck for so long. The symbol means Godsend. And Clint is a Godsend.