◆ SpookStack

Tupac and the Fall on the Road to Calvary Page 1! of 4 Tupac and the Fall on the Road to Calvary By Jordan Pelaez The first time I entered the gallery in The Prado where Raphael's The Fall on the Road to Calvary (ca. 1517) hangs, I simply stared at this monstrous ten foot high, eight foot wide canvas, and let the tears flow for ten minutes. If the friend I Absa was with hadn't snapped me out of it, J might still be in HERB to Un LASSUTED Madrid. DATONG EA Aa apne ; oo, ANAL FOL eN /' Raphael painted a mob scene, teeming with Roman soldiers, - Goole aiq execution spectators, horses, carts, mourners, and, way off in Wy De * ay gan | the distance at the end of the procession, Calvary, more a mound than a hill, where two crosses have already been erected. But at the painting's center are just two figures. Jesus, . fallen with his left hand on a rock and his right still trying to support the massive weight of the cross, looks back over his left shoulder. There stands a group of five women--first and foremost among them, Mary, his mother. Mary holds her hand outstretched, willing even now to do anything she can to save her child. Her look personifies despair and alienation. The look in Jesus's eyes bespeak compassion for the trial of his mother; even in this crisis, he seems like he's trying to console her. I knew those looks well. They were the looks, { thought that first time, that passed between my wife and my daughter as the latter lay dying of cancer. But further viewings brought me to a different understanding. My own face once bore one of those looks, and so does the face of every mother, and every child, who faces an untimely death. So when J got the news that Tupac Shakur had died of his drive-by wounds, I thought instantly of his mother. Given the life of distress that Tupac and his mother lived, how many times had they shared such glances, held them, broken them off only because the pain of sustaining such moments of intensity is finally too much for any heart to bear? The other day on the AOL discussion group The Velvet Rope, some foo] mocked the idea that Tupac could be compared in any way to John Lennon. But Tupac and Lennon and Elvis at least had this in common: The first, perhaps greatest, love of their life was their mother. And this is no sma)! thing, because al] of them made some of their most important music because of it: Lennon's "Julia," the early Elvis ballads that are clearly directed at his mom (catch the end of his second film, Loving You), and Tupac's "Dear Mama." Oct 18 1996 08:48 AM