Saturday, February 16, 2013

Another Day, Another Funeral...

Well, today was supposed to be the tough one. 

My dear friend, John Willard, with whom I've been a close close friend since 1966, died late last month, after a two-year fight with throat cancer.  Today, there was a memorial service for him, at a lovely Episcopal church in downtown Philadelphia.  Preparing to leave the house, for the 90 mile drive, all I could concentrate on was finding the blackest possible garments to wear.   

My John and I decided that, in order to be on time, we needed to leave the house by 9:30 am.  I drove, which gave me something on which to concentrate, other than death.  There was more traffic that I expected, but thanks to my skill at driving like a barely-in-control maniac, we made it to the parking garage at Walnut and 12th with plenty of time to walk to the church.  Time enough, even, for me to get a coffee. 

Time enough, as a matter of fact, for me to resume obsessing about the fact that, as I was leaving the house, I realized that I didn't have a handkerchief -- the closest related thing I could locate was a huge bandana with a picture of flying quails or something on it, and I couldn't very well pull that out of my pocket and blow my nose.  Not in an Episcopal church in Philadelphia.  The wad of paper towels in my pocket didn't seem quite right either.

We asked for hankies, at some trendy clothier off Broad St., but they didn't deal with such things.  The kind saleswoman suggested, though, that I try the Ralph Lauren shop just down the street.  Which proved to be perfect, if you can't tell the difference between a pocket square and a real hankie.  I bought the only white one they had, and I'll never tell how much it cost.  But at least I had something presentable to soak with grief.

The red doors of the church were wide open.  A few of John's friends were already there.  His sisters had arrived from hither and yon -- I'd met the oldest, Wendy, years ago, and she warmly remembered me.  Steven, the one friend of John's who so steadfastly cared him until the moment when caring was no longer necessary, was there.  Somehow, around him, I always feel like especially rank white trash.  Once our tense little greeting was over, my John and I found seats close to the pulpit, and waited.

It is a splendid old church, full of visual richness.  I was especially intrigued by the nearly symphonic array of reds -- red painted panels on the ceiling above the altar; swaths of red stained glass in the triple altar window; even a few of the mourners were wearing red, under something black of course.  There was an intricately carved railing, of some ivory-colored material, that made me think of what it must have been like, as an illiterate peasant, to be confronted with the splendor of a medieval cathedral -- how overwhelming the stimulus must have been, how fascinating every detail, and how easy it would be to get completely lost in the imagery, and begin making up one's own stories of what was going on, which would probably be wildly different from what the church fathers had in mind.  Just as my own train of thought would probably be frowned upon, come to think of it.

The service began.  The priest chanted as he walked up the center aisle to the front of the church.  We heard Bible texts and personal reminiscences.  We all read the 23rd Psalm together.  We sang a hymn.  We heard a brief sermon, about what happens after we die, which tends to make me furious.  We said the Lord's Prayer.  We heard a song by Debussy.  We stood for a benediction, which John's three sisters sang from the back of the church.  It came out in a kind of charming disarray that resolved itself for the round of Amens.  The organist played a Bach piece as the priest left down the center aisle again, and the service was over.  When I turned around to put on my overcoat, I was surprised to see that practically every pew in the sanctuary was occupied.  Mr. Willard certainly had a lot of friends.  Some of whom, as the service came to a close, were in tears, weeping copiously into their handkerchiefs.

I, however, had remained oddly dry-eyed.  There had been a brief burning flush, a stinging in my eyes, as I had paused just inside those red doors, before entering the church for the service.  But it quickly vanished.  Did I swallow that upwelling?  Did I push it away?  Did I squelch my grieving, again?   All I know is that the handkerchief I'd scurried about to find, remained free of any of the damp stinging saltiness I'd been expecting.

Because, I'm ashamed to say, I think I spent most of my time during that memorial wondering who I was in John Willard's life -- I felt superfluous and invalid and confused.  I couldn't figure out, while we sang and prayed and read, how I could have known this man for over forty years, and not know more than a single handful of the people gathered in this room, all to mourn his passing.  I think I felt unentitled to cry -- as though such a public display would be unseemly, vulgar, and obviously just an effort to call attention to myself -- to brag, as it were, about my sadness.  I'm trying, now, to find some picturesque analogy, to illustrate the degree to which I felt disoriented, but nothing suitable comes to mind.  I felt insignificant, as if the love I felt for this man was really not that important.  And if the love wasn't important, how could the grieving possibly matter?

There was a reception after the service, at one of John's favorite Philadelphia eateries.  The place had been reserved for this gathering, and there were a few hors d'oeuvres out on a table, and an open bar, and I still felt adrift.  My John (I know at least... fifteen Johns, I think -- I sometimes think of my John as JC, or John from California, not to be confused with JA, or John Carter, who was born in Alaska, or JV, Johnny Swing, who lives in Vermont, or JN, John Carter's father-in-law, who lives in New Orleans... you get the picture) got me a glass of red wine, and then we discovered a larger table, further back in the restaurant, with plates and forks and napkins, beside trays of sandwiches, some rice-y looking thing, and little round, possibly fish-related edibles.  We got in line, selected some of this and some of that, and sat at the far end of the longest table in the room.  Eventually, by dint of the fact that there were only so many chairs to go around, some people joined us, and as we were all there because we knew the same man who was now dead, we eventually started those little conversations one has with complete strangers at gatherings like these.  'How did you know John?'  In our case, we'd been joined by a cousin, and assorted relatives thereof.  Pleasant chatting ensued.

My John liked the risotto (it had lobster in it, we discovered) and got himself some more.  I jumped the line and snagged another little pork sandwich, so John could have one of his own.  We debated about another glass of wine.  I had a cup of coffee instead, served by a handsome young waiter whose thinness, emphasized by his tight tight clothes, was actually a little disconcerting.  And as usual, I was ready to leave sooner than almost anyone else.  We exchanged addresses with people I fully expect never to hear from again, said goodbye to John's sisters, another close friend of his, of whom I'd actually heard, and Steven, who seemed warmer by this time -- perhaps a bit of wine had helped? And presto -- the event was over.  We were less than two blocks from the parking garage, and within fifteen minutes, we were on our way back to South Orange again.  Me at the wheel.  To give me something on which to concentrate.

When will I not have something on which to concentrate?  When will this great boulder of stunned sadness I feel in my middle -- the place the Chinese say grief resides -- dislodge itself, and undam what lies behind or beneath or within it?  The man who, no matter what any priest says, is dead now, was one of the first loves of my life.  I wanted to be with him, and him only, when I was 20 years old and he was 27 -- 46 years ago.  And even though he let me know then, as diplomatically as possible, that he wasn't ready for a monandrous relationship, I was still smitten.  He had become -- in an instant, it seemed -- a crucial navigational point in my emotional life.  Although, all along, I couldn't quite believe that he really wanted to spend time with someone like me,who barely knew the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork, and for whom writing a thank you note was a completely alien concept.

And now, the other living half of this central life relationship is dead, and I don't feel equal to the unanticipated task of upholding, alone, the entirety of our history together.  But now, I am the only one who can remember these things, these slivers of memory -- there's no one else into whose brown eyes I can look, and know that, if I mention the little rented rubber boat we almost sank, off the beach in Provincetown all those years ago, he'll know exactly how the water felt.

I'm at home now, slumped on the couch, with little blue-eyed Coco purring on the couch beside me.  The new, still-dry handkerchief is in my pocket.  But I don't really need it -- I'm not in an ornate church full of people I don't know, and who don't know me.  Now I can go ahead and let my cheeks, and my chin, and my shirt get as wet...        


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