Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1919-11-29
Loves Crossroads
Loom Large At
Every Turn
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX.


A few weeks ago all of us were
startled to read of the man who,
flinging protective arms about his
wife who stood caught in the rail-
road ties, stood facing death in the
form of an oncoming locomotive.
II won't leave you, Mary" he
said.
And the ring of it had something
Of heroism and love bigger than
self.
1t takes a lot of courage to face
a fire-snorting, powerful, onrushing
Car of the juggernaut Courage like
that has something OF grandeur.
There's no getting away for a
GREATNESS moment of reverence for
the sheer magnificence of the
thing.
Would l be brave enough for
that" we say-"brave enough to
face humiliation with some one
love?" E
But there is one drawer thing. To
face the agony of farewell, to en-
dure the awful knowledge that part
ing has come, to bear the hideous
crushing out of life in the being
dearest in all the world--to bear it
and not share it for the sake of the
"stern-faced daughter of the voice
of God-DUTY." That is the SUI
preme thing. That is the thing
that requires the greatest courage
Of which the human heart is cap
able.
For every human decision has its
"other side" The man who loved
his wife enough to die with her had
three children. And the duty was
to love them enough to live for
them.
There were three helpless kiddies
at home. Those three kiddies were
flesh of the mans flesh. They had
come into this world without any
volition on their own part. They
hadn't been given any choice about
the mere matter of being born and
living. And the man who had
thrust upon them, all unasked, the
gift of life was responsible for the
life he had summoned from the in
finite.
There's no way of getting out of
duties and responsibilities. And the
sternest duty in all the world is the
duty of parent to child. What a
child owes its parents doesn't start
to be finite thing until the parent
has created the deft as it created
the child.
To make supreme decision all in
a moment is terrific mental test.
Everywhere a Cross-road.
Everyday life is full of moments
of strain. We keep coming to cross
roads and having to decide down
which we will 60. When there's
plenty of time to think things over,
to weight the pros and cons, there
isn't much excuse for deciding
stupidity. Some unconsidered ele-
ment of chance and change may
render a well-thought out decision
null and void. But, other things
being equal, when there's time to
decide the well-balanced brain
makes the best choice.
The big moments, however, come
unheralded. Instant action, quick
decision, an unerring choice, right
weighing of values are required.
How then shall we make the right
choice?
The best preparation for crisis is
to live every moment of every day
as we'll as we know how. When
the little decisions have to be made.
we must make them sane1y and
wisely. Mentally and not emotion
ally. Honestly and not dramatic
ally. Then when a crisis comes au-
tomatically the brain trained to
weighing and measuring and basing
decision on actual values is pretty
likely to formulate its decisions like
that in the infnitesimal moment it
has for adjustment.
Emotion, the love for the dra-
matte, the telling gesture, are tempt,
ing to all of US all the time. And
the wrong mental habit will lead US
to make first one and then another
decision with our minds eye on the
wrong thing.
Unconsciously we play to the
gallery of our own self-esteem, Of
To Cure = Cold in One Day.