“She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend – as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”
(Warning: Spoiler to Anne of Green Gables)
Anne Shirley was faced with a life-changing decision. Will she pursue her own dream of going to college or will she give it up to stay at Green Gables to care for the aging Marilla?
As she sat in the darkness of her room alone with her tears, agonizing over the future, there slowly came a smile on her face. She went to bed with peace in her heart. “She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend – as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.”
A week later Anne told Marilla that she will give up the full scholarship to attend Redmond College to stay home with her. “You surely don’t think I could leave you alone in your trouble, Marilla, after all you’ve done for me.”
Anne chose to give up her own ambitions in order to fulfill her duty to Marilla. Some who do not understand the situation called her foolish. But Mrs. Allan the minister’s wife did not.
It is rare nowadays to see such displays of loyalty and self-sacrifice. While we have all kinds of means to improve “networking” and “community”, yet when it comes to face-to-face, have we lost some of the real essence of loyalty and obligation in relationships? Have we gotten so selfish with our own pursuits that we refuse the “duty” to the ones we love?
Anne came to her decision in light of all that Marilla had done for her. It seems our culture do not have that sense of obligation to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of another anymore. We act as if what I want and what is best for me is the overriding value.
Anne saw that once she faced her duty, she found it a friend. She told Marilla, “Oh, Marilla, don’t you go pitying me. I don’t like to be pitied, and there is no need for it. I’m heart glad over the very thought of staying at dear Green Gables…” In facing our duty, we are not a martyr to be pitied, rather there will be gladness at our chosen path.
“I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen’s my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don’t know what lies around the bend, but I’m going to believe that the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes…”
Don’t you love that attitude?