Did you like fairy tales when you were a kid? I did…. I read them over and over, and then I discovered Greek mythology. The very endlessness of Greek mythology let me indulge two passions at once: the passion for interesting stories about how people live, and the passion for research.. the latter lead me to write an exhaustive lexicon of Greek mythical heroes, cross-referenced to equivalent Roman myths, not bad for a ten-year-old, I found the manuscript last year. 
As a kid, fairy tales and myths were just stories accepted at face value. They were entertaining. As a grown-up, I discovered with great interest that there can be more to them. I had an acquaintance who had made a career of examining such things as the female stereotypes in Disney’s The Little Mermaid; and I had a colleague who was interested in the origin of children tales and songs. For example, he told me that Ring Around the Rosie is a song about the plague.
Cassandra was a Greek mythological figure whose name and story has survived. She was given the gift of prophecy… well, not just any kind of prophecy, I mean ACCURATE prophecy, the kind that actually comes true. And later, she was cursed by one of the gods; gifted to always foretell the future accurately, she was doomed to never be believed or heeded.
And I find myself wondering…. how she handled it. How did she handle the frustration of knowing she was right alongside her inability to convince anyone that she was right.
I was wondering whether she experienced the classic stages of grief.
Maybe she started out telling herself that this cannot be happening to her, it is not possible that people won’t believe her when she keeps accurately predicting things! Maybe she is not telling the right people, maybe she needs to enhance her communication skills, maybe she should take a course on how to Win Friends And Influence People!
And then, maybe she got angry, asking herself what the hell is the matter with everyone? Why can’t they see the evidence before them?!?!? Maybe she backed some people to the wall, and told them they HAD to listen to her, because SHE KNOWS.
“It’s not working … look, I’m sorry I yelled, but it’s so important that you listen! Please, listen to me, just TRUST me this one time and if it turns out I am wrong, I will never ask you to trust me again. Deal?
No use…. no use…. there’s nothing I can do to fix this. There must be something wrong with me. When people look at me, they must see someone whose judgement cannot be trusted. Or maybe I just cannot come across as competent, trustworthy, whatever…. doesn’t matter. It’s no use.
Whatever happens, happens. I tried. “
I wonder. I wonder whether she found the energy and the will to keep croaking out her unwelcome prophecies until her dying breath; either stuck in the anger phase, or stuck in the bargaining phase. I wonder whether she made it into the acceptance phase with bitterness, watching her prophecies come true and then regaling everyone with “I told you so’s”.
I wonder whether she developed the kind of acceptance that lets you let go of the need to control the process; that lets you find peace in whatever end may come.
