My children's children

Sebastian, Isaac, and Wilder

I know that this isn't the most beautiful picture of Isaac with his raven hair and dark flashing eyes but it shows his aloof attitude towards his two younger cousins. These boys are around four years apart in age as were my three children. I remember Brendan saying, when we were visiting France's western coast and trying to entertain them all - a practically impossible task given their age differences - "I don't appreciate your feeble attempt to make me happy."

To die, to sleep --

Last year two of the closest people to my heart died ~ Rob and Susan. 

I will never be the same.  I feel as if I have lost my talent to alight and write. I've decided - when I remember - to write poems and such in my blog to let my friends know that I am still thinking. 

I am reading "A Single Rose" by French author Muriel Barbery. In it I found this:

"The hardest thing, it turns out, is not trying to be happy without the person you loved... It's changing, no longer being who you were with that person... I feel as if I'm betraying myself"

I feel as if I am treading water or perhaps my head is above ground, flitting around like a butterfly. Recently, Marlene sent me the poem "Summons" that reminds me of Machado's "Last Night as I Was Dreaming" and lastly "To sleep - perchance to dream" springs to mind. 

Hamlet by Shakespeare

To die, to sleep—

No more—and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. ’tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep—

To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub!

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause—there’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

Summons by Aurora Levins Morales

Last night I dreamed

ten thousand grandmothers

from the twelve hundred corners of the earth

walked out into the gap

one breath deep

between the bullet and the flesh

between the bomb and the family.

They told me we cannot wait for governments.

There are no peacekeepers boarding planes.

There are no leaders who dare to say

every life is precious, so it will have to be us.

They said we will cup our hands around each heart.

We will sing the earth’s song, the song of water,

a song so beautiful that vengeance will turn to weeping,

the mourners will embrace, and grief replace

every impulse toward harm.  

Ten thousand is not enough, they said,

so, we have sent this dream, like a flock of doves

into the sleep of the world. Wake up. Put on your shoes. 

You who are reading this, I am bringing bandages

and a bag of scented guavas from my trees. I think

I remember the tune. Meet me at the corner.

Let’s go. 

Last Night As I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a spring was breaking

out in my heart.

I said: Along which secret aqueduct,

Oh water, are you coming to me,

water of a new life

that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that a fiery sun was giving

light inside my heart.

It was fiery because I felt

warmth as from a hearth,

and sun because it gave light

and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,

I dreamt—marvelous error!—

that it was God I had

here inside my heart.

Worrywart

I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And I gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

~ Mary Oliver

Scattering Rob's Ashes

 

It's been over a year and four months since Rob's stupid tragic fall.  When he died, I read Joan Didion's "The Year of Magical Thinking" three times. She writes, “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it…  We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes.”

I have not been able to give away Rob's best shoes or the suit he had custom-made in Viet Nam. I never shopped for him. We had different tastes and interests and often travelled alone. It's only now that I realize how much we shared - dinners most evenings with jazz simmering, market and restaurant outings, never-ending discussions about politics, the weather, health issues, and our children and grandsons.

The other day, I was reading old emails from Rob and in one, he was trying to rationalize travelling business class. I responded in three words, "Go for it!" He responded, "I love you." (We often had to give the other "permission" to be extravagant.) 

In practically every birthday card he gave me, he'd write "I really do love you." In every anniversary card, he'd write "30, 40, 50 years of living hell". This always made me smile. For years, I'd pressured him to express his love in words, and forever and a day, he told me that he couldn't. But then, most mornings, he'd wrap me in his arms. I miss his touch. I miss his smell. 

“I did not always think he was right nor did he always think I was right but we were each the person the other trusted.” We seldom fought but one of our arguments was about who would die first. He insisted that it would be him. I insisted it would be me.

I no longer receive a daily news report about all the horrible things happening in the world. Nor do I know if the sun will shine, the rain will fall. I no longer have a sound man, a confidant, a companion. I see older couples holding hands or chatting away and I am still angry. Rob and I thought we'd have more time - at least until we were eighty. The one good thing about his death is that he will not suffer mine. 

Dear Rob, you wanted your ashes spread in this forest. In our wedding ceremony, I refused to promise that I would obey you but in this, I will. On your last birthday, I posted a picture of you in cowboy gear. A friend, a colleague, wrote: "Rob should have been wearing a white cowboy hat in the photo… because that was the way you could tell one of the true good guys in a classic western. And Rob was one of the goodest guys it has ever been my privilege to know."

Weary

[D]o not be afraid to love, to open your heart to the world, even if it means risking heartbreak. For the sweetness of love far outweighs the bitterness of loss. And when the inevitable pain comes, find solace in the beauty of the world around you, in the simple pleasures of life, in the memories of love and laughter. For even in the midst of sorrow, there is still beauty to be found.    ~ Louise Erdrich

I am preparing for Rob's scattering on October 28th. He requested a particular forest near our French house. Michael and Isaac have arrived. Brendan, Jane, and Seb arrive late Friday night, and Gill, Derek, and Wilder arrive late Saturday. My quiet house will become a madhouse with toys scattered everywhere. I don't care. 

As there are not enough beds, I'll slip over to Mary's. 

I am still astonished that I am 75. How did I become so old? I grow more and more dependent on others' words as I cannot find my own. I'm a big fat mess inside and I tell myself to move slowly one step at a time. I flit from one activity to another.  Some form of expression is vital... Helen Luke writes. 

I will try to pick up my writing again but I resist. 

The tragedy of old age is not old but young. Inside this aging body lies a heart still as curious, still as hungry, still as full of desire as it was in its youth. I sit by the window watching the world go by, feeling like a stranger in a foreign country, unable to connect with the outside world, and yet, within me the same fire burns that once thought it could conquer the world. And the real tragedy is that the world remains so far and so elusive, a place I have never been able to fully grasp.       ~ Albert Camus

Birthdays

October 3rd 

October 14th... I posted the top picture on FaceBook for Rob's birthday and a film friend wrote "Rob should have been wearing a white cowboy hat in the photo above because that was the way you could tell one of the true good guys in a classic western. And Rob was one of the goodest guys it has ever been my privilege to know." Brendan photoshopped it. 

Anything I write and post on FB with Rob's name included is seen by all his film industry colleagues and so, for some reason, I tend to be reticent about expressing my feelings. They are still too tender. 

I posted: Happy Birthday to Rob Young - my fun-loving, gun-slinging man who was my solid ground. If you can, have a margarita in his honour. 

(N.B. the guns in-hand are toys. My guys and gal are pretending they are tough. In fact, all four of them are gentle, kind folk.) This photograph was taken on Rob's 70th birthday.) 

I wrote the N.B. as I have a gun-loving cousin and I did not want him to think that anyone in my family have a similar love for weapons. 

October 17th

For Gill on FB, I was reticent but a little less than on Rob's:

Happy Birthday to our daughter Gillian Young, born three days after Rob's 40th birthday. She is bright, kind, generous, effervescent, courageous, and the best daughter in the universe.

You are lovely, my darling Gill. 

"...  sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on the brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing"

I don't know why I thought of this poem by Galway Kinnell for your birthday. Perhaps, it is simply that everyone needs to be reminded of their loveliness and what better day than on one's birthday.

And then I sent Gill a private card ~ not too private that I cannot show part of it here:

Adrift

Adrift 

 Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.
 

This is how the heart makes a duet of
 wonder and grief. 

The light spraying 
through the lace of the fern is as delicate


as the fibers of memory forming their web


around the knot in my throat. The breeze


makes the birds move from branch to branch


as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost


in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh


of the next stranger. In the very center, under


it all, what we have that no one can take


away and all that we’ve lost face each other.


It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured


by a holiness that exists inside everything.


I am so sad and everything is beautiful. 

(Mark Nepo)

My friend Marlene sent me this poem and it so describes my head and heart for the past year and nearly an half. I am only now pausing and listening to myself, observing what I choose to do without comment from the part of me that likes to criticize. 

In my email to Marlene, I wrote:

I have been struggling being alone, struggling with all the work it takes to run a household, keep myself alive. As well as my usual chores, I now have to shop, cook, figure out how things work - so many things that I would just call “Rob” and he would solve the issue. I never realised that he did so much...

I have been researching aging, trying to find the good part about aging. I turned to Simone de Beauvoir and her book “Old Age”. How depressing. I want sunshine. I want to understand why Ann Truitt said that it was the best time in her life. I thought of Helen Luke who said something like “to die a good death, you have to live a good life.”...  At every time in my life that I have been uncertain where to turn, a book has fallen into my lap. I am still waiting... 

I have led such an interesting life. I think now of times with grouchy old Rob and I am astonished and delighted at his words, his actions. And yet he was often a difficult man. And yet I trusted him to be there for me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Where do I go from here? I intend to go somewhere.

I intend to go somewhere!

In the meanwhile, I am readying my house for my children and their families who arrive at the end of October when we will celebrate Rob and scatter his ashes. 

Freedom and Loneliness

When nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. what do you call it, freedom or loneliness? ~ Milan Kundera

The Passing of Time

Growing, ripening, aging, dying — the passing of time is predestined, inevitable. There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life, and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning — devotion to individuals, to groups or to causes, social, political, intellectual or creative work. In old age we should wish still to have passions strong enough to prevent us turning in on ourselves. One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation, compassion. ~Simone de Beauvoir (Book: The Coming of Age.)

I no longer know what I was doing before Rob died. Since his death - 1 year, 3 months, 15 days - I walk around in a daze, lightly drugged with nerve medicine to still the shingles that refuse to leave me in peace. I am trying to find value in my life and like a woman in her forties who hears her biological clock ticking, I hear mine. I figure that I have five to eight good years left and I don't want to waste them. And yet what to do? I have always found solutions about where to take my life in books but one hasn't fallen into my lap lately. I don't know if I'm still grieving or if I'm becoming senile. I am scared. I have always been prone to melodrama so I hope that's what I am doing now.

First Son's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Brendan! I didn't know that Rob and I could make a human being until you were born. Rob used to say "the pleasure was all mine." The joy you felt holding your newborn son in your arms was ours when we held you. You grew. You tested us. (As Seb will do for you.) When you were a teenager, you said, "I don't appreciate your feeble attempts to make me happy." ( A sign that you were developing your father's sense of humour.) You grew older. You were unique. You were creative. Oh so smart and yet so self-contained. And then you met wild and wonderful Jane. To put it mildly, you both flourished and continue to flourish under each other's care. As you now know, a parent learns from a child as much as the child learns from the parent. Thank you, my beautiful son. You make me proud!

More "Glimpses of Beauty"

I have just reread a script by Jonas Mekas about "brief glimpses of beauty" that has saved me from out and utter despair this past year and a half. I had dinner with friends on a level of grass beyond their house last night. The air was warm, the mood was light, the wine and food more than satisfactory. "To have a glass of wine with friends, old friends and new friends, is beauty... we all look for something more important... But, as life goes on... we realise that one day follows another, and things that we felt were so important yesterday we feel we have forgotten them already today." In my mind, Mekas point is that some of the most beautiful times are those spent with family and friends. (I am posting some of my Facebook entries as some of my friends are not on social media.)

Scattering Susan's Ashes

Susan called cremation "the burning". She wanted the scattering of her ashes to happen after a picnic on an elevated plain near her village. She wanted the occasion to be joyful. Is that asking too much? she asked. No Susan, I think you would have loved the event which took place two nights ago. Your granddaughter performed a flower ballet. Your grand-niece recited poetry. A university friend spoke of feminism and friendship two subjects close to your heart. Another grandson mimiced a wild animal, while anotther did a magic trick. Your eldest grandson played the guitar accompanied by your granddaughter on the oboe. Your new daughter sang. You would have had the biggest smile on your face. I spoke of your love of the body and sex. (You, my darling Susan opened my world and gave me permission to say what I hadn't dared.) After the expressions of love and devotion, David had each member of the family, beginning with himself, followed by the eldest son all the wy down to the youngest grandchild, scatter Susan's ashes. It was beyond beautiful.

Life Mimics Art

Outside Edinburgh lies Jupiter Artland. It was so beautiful, walking through miles of woodland, listening to birdsong, and studying modern sculptures, and every so often mimicing them. "Weeping Girls"

"Over Here"

"I Lay Here for You"

Our Anniversary #39

I'm not sure why I'm adding this. Perhaps to give an overview of our marriage. On the one hand, I'm still not sure I loved Rob enough. On the other hand, I think I gave him some pretty magnificent moments. And he did the same for me. What's the use of whining and complaining about the times when life was hellish? When we were out of sync? When we challenged the other? In the end, now that I have a real overview of our marriage, I'd say that we never ever fell out of love. We never doubted the other's goodness. We trusted each other with our lives.

Our Anniversary

 

Lace

 

It's been nearly a year since Rob died (how it pains me to write this.) I find myself obsessing once again about his stupid tragic fall. How he suffered and how we, his family suffered for him and for ourselves. 

Without language, we didn't know what he knew but there were signs that he was still in there somewhere - when his fingers tapped on his chest to his favourite music, when his nose went up and he scowled at the nurse spraying ammonia on his sheet (he hated the smell of cleaning products).  He also expressed his awareness by squeezing our hands, pulling at Gill's hair, and that one precious moment when he pulled me down and kissed me on the lips. 

What hell he lived through. He hated the needles and tubes and especially the catheter. The doctor agreed to take everything out for our anniversary. He died two days before it. 

This has been a long, cumbersome, painful year although there were brief glimpses of beauty. My children, siblings, and friends have been loving and forgiving of my inability to communicate well. Lately, I have been antsy and unsettled as I go through Rob's stuff, saving the important things for our children and giving to friends and charity the inconsequential - most of the clothes that covered him - and his office supplies. (I took his old office chair, stained and taped and covered in cat hair to the dump.) I felt it a betrayal. 

This reminds me of how separate the two of us were. We not only kept individual offices but we had separate interests and often travelled alone. It's only now that I realize how much we shared. - dinners every evening, Rob's wonderful jazz music seranading us, market and restaurant outings, and never-ending discussions about politics, the weather, and health issues. I now recognize, as I must do all to keep house and self together, our unspoken division of necessary chores. 

The other day, I was reading old emails from Rob and in one, he was trying to rationalize travelling business class. I responded, "Go for it!  He responded, "I love you." (We often had to give the other "permission" to be extravagant.) 

In practically every birthday and anniversay card Rob gave me, he'd write "I really do love you." This always made me smile. For years, I'd pressured him to talk to me, to express his love or his hatred and forever and a day, he told me that he couldn't. He could not. I only accepted this is the last few years. When he'd surprise me with a kiss or hug, I'd find myself warmed and happy. I realized how I missed his touch. 

When he was helpless in his hospital bed, I did everything I could think to do to make him feel more comfortable, and it hit me that he had been so self-sufficient, so capable that there was little I had to do for him. I wondered sometimes, if he needed me at all. When I offered to be his sous-chef, he said I was too slow but the times, we did work together in the kitchen - he making one dish, I another, I liked it. 

I don't know how I feel as this anniversary approaches. Part of me is missing. I no longer receive a  news report about all the horrible things happening in the world. Nor do I know if the sun will shine. I no longer have a sound man, a confidant, a companion. I see older couples holding hands or chatting away and I am angry. Rob and I thought we'd have more time - at least until we were eighty. He wanted to return to Japan with me and now I must go alone and I am a little scared. 

I trusted him, even when he infuriated me. He spent so many hours, worrying about his ailments. He  could have been loving me. His death has brought home that one day I will die and leave a pile of stuff. I would like to leave as little as possible for my children to dispose of. In turn, this makes me question what is important, what do I need, what do I love.

When I was in London recently, I went to the Royal Academy to see the work of Angelica Kaufmann, a Swiss Neoclassical painter and what I loved most was the fashion - rich fabrics on the men and delicate flowing dresses on the women. Both sexes' garments were trimmed with gorgeous intricately-pattered lace. After, I went shopping and found a net crinoline  (like a long ballet tutu) and bought it. The other night, when I was going out to dinner, I felt drab and listless, I decided to wear my crinoline skirt under a long linen coat and walk the several kilometers to the location. The evening turned out to be a great escape - more than one glimpse of beauty. 

I am beginning to accept that Rob is no longer - not that I find it easy or like it. I don't but now I have to discover how to live alone and find pleasure.  

 

My Susan

Susan was a rare and beautiful woman. I met her around 35 years ago when I first arrived in the village. From the moment we met and she handed me a key to her house, she overwhelmed me with her trust and kindness. Soon after, she left, on my doorstep, a book and note describing a recent dream that troubled her. "Do you read?" she wrote. "I need help." 

Once when she came to visit, she found me weeping. Without questioning my tears, she took my arm and led me to her garden where she fed me figs and told me stories about her life. She was forthright and open - no dramatization, just simple facts. Noting my discomfort, she told me that she did not believe in euphemisms.

Over that first year, she took me and my children on picnics beside riverbanks and amid fields of poppies, She led us to art exhibits in nearby towns, and on nature walks through forests in search of wild orchids. On one such walk, my 4 year old daughter proclaimed, "Oh you are so clever, Susan". Watching their relationship blossom, I thanked the heavens that Gill had someone who could teach her what I could not. 

During this time, Susan was painting delicate exacting pictures of wild flowers and had begun her autobiography. I shared her love of writing and would bring my meagre offerings to her. She would applaud or criticize. I grew to trust her completely. She was the smartest woman I've ever met: I thought her an encyclopaedia of English literature. 

She was also a gourmand who loved to cook. Her onion tart is still a celebratory dish in my home. She told me once that the two best things in life are food and sex, and people didn't enjoy them enough or talk about them enough.

How could I not love her?

During our years together, she wrote and rewrote and rewrote longhand her three volume autobiography that her beloved David typed and published for her. 

As she grew old and fragile, she did so with such grace, never losing her passion for birds and wildflowers, oysters and champagne, poetry and books, and her family and friends. To my mind, she was especially  enchanted by her grandchildren.

Recently, Susan told me that some people treat her as ancient - a body without a mind, without desires and dreams. "Do you ever dream of sex?" she continued."Do you?" I asked. She smiled, her beautiful mischievous child-like smile and said, "yes!"

I feel privileged to have had Susan as a friend. I shall love her forever more.