A death without Apology

Every now and then I find a show on TV that I can really get into. These past few months I’ve been watching the series on TV called Vikings. I done a little research and the characters in the show are based on legendary Vikings from long ago.

My hometown of Heavener has a famous carving on a large rock that has been dated as being one thousand years old. It is believed to have been done by Viking explorers.

Several of our local sports team mascots are Vikings. They even have a Viking festival once or twice a year. So I kind of have a bit more interest in Viking history than most people.

The show starts out with a young man and his wife living as farmers.

The young man and his best friend have a dream of learning a new way to navigate the sea, so they can go farther than any Vikings has ever gone before. They dream of raiding far away lands and becoming rich and powerful.

As it turns out all of their dreams come true. The main character of the show is called Ragnar Lodbrok. He goes from being a simple farmer to a king. He has to learn about people betraying him and people using him.

At some point during the series Ragnar is killed by an English king. He is about to be dropped into a pit of vipers (snakes). Ragnar gives a bit of a speech about his life and why he did many of the things he did.

One of the things he said was that his death comes without apology.

I finished watching the series after Ragnar’s death. Mainly, I wanted to see how the other main characters died in the show. As I watched the show each evening I reflected on what Ragnar said about not apologizing for all of the things he done in his life.

At the time of his death he was the most famous man in the world. He was also controversial in several ways. He was unsure of his religion and unsure of several of his friend’s loyalties. He had led raids that turned into disasters and got several people killed. It would have been easy for most men in his situation to become sorrowful, apologize and beg everyone for forgiveness, but not him. He said he welcomed death and would not apologize for his actions.

Whether or not to apologize. That’s a choice we all make each day.

Do we repair the bridges we have burned, or do we leave them in the past? I think the TV show was a wonderful metaphor for life. Maybe, we should only apologize to a very select few, those who truly made a difference in our lives and really helped when the chips were down.

Either way, it’s an interesting thing to think about as I go about my morning chores. Not many TV shows get me to think philosophical, but this one has.

James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.