Spelman closes her thoughts by invoking more thought on the reader. Spelman says “The story of H. reparans throws into sharp relief how we humans have responded to the fact of being creatures who are inherently limited by the resources at our disposal, who are subject to the ever-present possibility of failure and decay, who sometimes seek continuity with the past, and who face the necessity of deciding whether or not to patch up relationships with our neighbors—in short, it reminds us of some facts about the human condition that perhaps we tend to find disturbing.” (138–39) and this brings together many thought she expressed throughout the text.
We see many natural occurrences in life as disturbing such as aging. This “human condition” is one that all people experience yet we treat wrinkles as marks of the devil. In fact, my grandmother has fourteen doctors that she visits often and countless pills that keep her alive, visually she spends money on creams and dyes that make her look younger. This seems to be a reoccurring theme with age in woman; “look young”, “feel young”, “be young.” With age comes death and people are afraid of death. So woman try to reverse the effect of age. We make the thought of age seem somehow perverse as if you look young you cannot die. We make it seem as if nobody else is going through these. Doctors spend their whole lives trying to repair others and are distraught when a patient die, but in the same way we would rather concentrate on fixing other objects and people and not worrying about our own problems.
This is most obviously seen in hypocrites, but can be found in everybody. I have a friend has many insecurities that see can easily ignore when she has a boyfriend, but seem to creep into her thoughts whenever she is single. Because of this she stays in relationships constantly. One guy in particular she has been on and off with for five years. They know they are not good together and the relationship is not healthy and always ends in tears, but they would rather try to repair the shattered pieces of their relationship than face the thought of loneliness. This brings forth a thought that Spelman doesn’t bring up. We would rather have something that is broken beyond repair or poorly stitched together then to not have anything. But, this “human condition” of being alone, one that is natural is one that we find an awful thought. This is further proven by the phrase “It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. Humans are afraid to be lonely because they must spend time with themselves and as we are creatures that innately look for things that we can repair we find innumerous faults in our self when lonely.
As I see it we repair because we feel helpless. If a man has repaired his liver, it will not kill him. If a young woman repairs her relationship she does not have to focus on repairing herself. In both cases people wish to repair one thing to avoid another. We also dive into other repair jobs overcompensating for the fact that we cannot fix each other so we will fix objects. People and relationships don’t come with manuals, but we will forever try to fix them. All people run into this at some point in life whether in regard to themselves or another and they realize not all things can be fixed. This gives them an extra surge of pride when they can fix something. People begin to overcompensate for the fact that they cannot fix themselves or their relationships by fixing physical objects. Women keep a clean house to make people forget that she cannot fix her marriage.