Final Stanza

The telephone is ringing when I walk into the apartment after our drive back from New York State. It's a friend calling from Vermont with the news of a death: my close friend K. He was, ironically, about the same age as my father. My happiness about the just-completed visit and anticipation of the holidays dissolves immediately, replaced by the sting of tears and a chasm of emptiness that opens painfully in my chest: I haven't spoken to K. for several months and yet have been thinking about him a lot recently, planning to write or call before the holidays. Now it will always be too late.

J. touches my arm and leaves me alone for a while, and then gently asks if I'd like a fire. Yes, I tell him, and let's have a drink in K.'s honor; I suppose we should break open the single malt but I'll go for vodka. We pull up chairs close to the warmth, offer a silent toast, and I think of K. building a fire in the huge fireplace of their home, the first time we went there for dinner, their old dog happily curled up at our feet. Oh good, you'll have a real drink, he'd said when we asked for vodka, my children and all their friends will only drink white wine and one glass at that, and later, with us settled and the fire skillfully burning, he'd straightened up his tall frame, sat in a comfortable chair, and gone on to answer our questions about the paintings and photos in the room, reminders of time spent in Paris, London, Greece.

The house begins to warm up; J. makes some pilaf and I cook Moroccan chicken with olives and oranges. After dinner I light the candles in front of the icon and stare not at Christ's impassive face, but down into the votive flames in their pools of clear paraffin. I’m at a complete loss – all that comes to me is his name, which I murmur several times, and then fall silent. I think about a conversation K. and I had about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a touchstone for both of us. Our conversations often circled round what it meant to be both intellectuals and Christians in a post-modern, post-Christian world. How to live it out, even as one's own thought changes, with integrity -- and how so few people, let alone the Church, ever do. K. was quick to spot hypocrisy in himself, in other people, and in institutions, and had a remarkable talent for looking at issues from all possible angles, which often cast him in the role of critical observer, standing just off to one side, but he also had the courage to act, speak out, and lead. Our friendship evolved during a very difficult period in the life of our parish, when he was senior warden and I was active on the vestry; we both sang in the choir. It also spanned 9/11, the run-up to the Iraq war and all the subsequent national and international events, as well as major changes in both our lives, separated as they were by nearly 30 years: the sale of their home and the move into a retirement community which included the dismantlement of his library, an event he described "like amputating a limb;" the deaths of his dog, his best friend, and finally his wife; and several serious health crises of his own. On my side there were the final illnesses and deaths of three of our parents or in-laws; the writing and publication of my book about sexual politics and Church; our own gradual decision to downsize and move permanently to Montreal. Through all of this we talked, sometimes after choir or church, more pleasantly over lunch or a glass of sherry in the late afternoon or later by email or phone. We spoke about music and film, about politics and current events, about life and relationships, and we shared what we were reading -- articles from the New Yorker or London Review of Books; poems by Milosz, Zagajewski, Szymborska; reactions to scripture and liturgy; many many books...

I realize after a few minutes that I’m quietly banging my fist against the mantle, which at least makes me laugh at myself a little. I take down a volume of Bach from the nearby shelf and sit at the piano. The prelude and fugue in b-minor which end the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier have served before as a farewell, and so I open the pages and begin. The prelude is uneventful, but the strange fugue knots and turns in upon itself, emerging every now and then, as if into a clearing, into a haunting and beautiful melody; it’s a mirror of a life, this fugue, and as is probably appropriate, I’m playing it badly, but I carry on through the pages of thorny thickets and sunlit clearings that feel, tonight, like a reflection of my own disordered thoughts as much as of life itself. I'm wishing for the resolution that usually comes with Bach, but tonight it isn’t going to be that way. The notes untangle and release, the fugue ends, but I’m still filled with regrets and questions. Too late, too late.

Outside, the wind howls.

(to be continued)

Comments

[Dave]

Sorry to hear about the ending of such a long and wide-ranging conversation, Beth. The photo you've chosen for this post is peculiarly appropriate at communicating a mood.

[Beth]

Thanks, Dave. Things will become less blurry in the next installment (and, hey, stay healthy, OK?)

[mary mccloskey]

So sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. But he sounds like he had an incredibly rich life, enriching others as well. The photograph is very moving.

[Kim]

Oh, Beth, I am so sorry for your loss. I felt your pain in a visceral way and I am crying. I will be thinking of you.

[margaret]

Beth, sympathies on your loss. How fortunate and blessed you were to share such a special friendship.

[Marja-Leena]

So sorry, Beth, for this deep loss of a dear friend. What a beautiful memoir and photo and the choice of music with which to say a private goodbye. Those memories of shared well-lived lives are precious.

[kat]

Oh, oh. I'm so sorry. Wishing you warmth.

[Dale]

I'm sorry for your loss. I find that grief is one of the few things that hasn't gotten much easier as I've grown older. May we all leave someone to mourn us and miss us like this -- I'll confess that I found myself envying your friend, Beth, as I read this. xoxo

[Jean]

Hugs from here, Beth. He sounds like a lovely man, and what a sweet and precious thing your meeting of hearts and minds across the generations.

[Natalie]

Beth, your farewell is a wonderful tribute to your friend, one which he would no doubt have appreciated - and Bach to accompany it - what could be more fitting? The friendship goes on forever but I'm so sorry the friend himself is gone.

[Mouse]

Too late?
No, you shared a wonderful friendship that enriched both of your lives
There are always words we do not get to time speak, letters that we do not get to time send, laughter that we do not get time to share
But too late?
No, not if you have touched another's soul

[Martine]

Mes sincères sympathies, chère Beth.

All I can think of after reading your beautiful, evocative post is how blessed he was to have you as a friend.

Makes me realize my own luck.

[judy]

This is beautiful. I am sorry for your loss. Your description of the events and your feelings around them stirred my soul. Thank you.