Past, Almost Present, Future.
Nov. 6th, 2009 09:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogLast night and today have had their share of moments and memories. We'd run out of active Netflix requests for Eleanor and me, so I queued a couple of Emily's requests, but only one of them came yesterday. The other to come, a long-queued future release with a "short wait" that got even shorter and arrived totally unexpectedly, was the finally-released DVD version of John Huston's final film, The Dead. His daughter Angelica played one of the featured roles (as did longtime Trek player Colm Meaney), and his son Tony wrote the script, adapted from James Joyce's story of that name in Dubliners. It's gorgeous, multilayered, funny in moments and poignant throughout, and the "dead" of the title doesn't really hit you until the very end of the story- as death usually does.
----
As it did, once again, two years ago tomorrow, when we got word that my late sister's husband had died, two days short of his 70th birthday. My other sister and I are regularly involved in financial matters left over from his life, but the loss of such a good soul, especially around the anniversary of both his passing and his birth (made even more complicated this year by my 50th falling on what would have been his 72nd), has nothing to do with finances and everything to do with memories and the lives he left behind.
I've begun reading the essays in Paul Rudnick's book, which I picked up earlier this week. The first of them talks about his aunts, both older sisters to his own mother, like me the baby of her family, and the end of the essay chronicles the death of his Aunt Lil, "the powerful older sister" of the three. Two passages reminded me of Jean-Pierre: one in death, the other in the way his life lives on. The first was from a cemetery, as my own memories entwined with him two years ago Monday:
After the service, everyone piled into their cars and drove out to one of those vast roadside cemeteries on Long Island. I always find these places incredibly depressing, not because they're filled with dead people, but because the stone markers and careful landscaping have so little to do with those dead people's lives or personalities. These cemeteries seem like filing systems, like some bland, hellish vision of a peculiarly American eternity, a Levittown for the deceased.
Considering that my sisters and I grew up one town to the west of the original Levittown, and Sandy and Jean-Pierre settled one town to the east of it, I couldn't help but be touched by that imagery.
And, likewise, by this imagery, from some time after the loss of his loved one:
During the years following Lil's death, I've noticed that when my mom and Hilda [the other sister] get together, or talk on the phone, they take turns becoming Lil. They tell each other what to do, in no uncertain terms, and they both get irate when the other wouldn't listen; this heartfelt battling keeps Lil alive.
I'd like to think that we four remaining souls of this generation, my sister, our nieces and I- keep the battling down to a dull roar, but that we do honor the memories and preserve the lives of their parents, our sister and her husband, in the lives we do lead. In our cares and concerns and our opinions and offers to always be there for each other. It beats being in Levittown, however metaphorical, any day of the week.
----
As I finished these thoughts, Emily came back in from her date. The boy's mom brought them home, after she and I drove our kids to the movie theater right before 7. I had to have a little bit of levity before letting her out at the curb of the Maple Ridge multiplex:
Me (affecting my best Nice Jewish Mudda voice): So do I get to meet this nice boy? What does he do? Are his parents nice?
Her: Dad. You've MET him.
Me: Yeah, but well, back then he was just a guy, you know? Now he's a suitor for the heart of my only daughter.
Her (increasingly stern): You are NOT meeting him while wearing gym shorts.
(I'd recently returned from cardio when it was time for her to leave.)
Me (not skipping a beat): You want me to take them off?
Her: Can I, just,....
Me (still on roughly the same frequency): Curl up in a corner,....
Her: ...and DIE?!?!?
Even she admits, though, she'll miss this kind of banter if I'm ever not around to offer it.
----
As it did, once again, two years ago tomorrow, when we got word that my late sister's husband had died, two days short of his 70th birthday. My other sister and I are regularly involved in financial matters left over from his life, but the loss of such a good soul, especially around the anniversary of both his passing and his birth (made even more complicated this year by my 50th falling on what would have been his 72nd), has nothing to do with finances and everything to do with memories and the lives he left behind.
I've begun reading the essays in Paul Rudnick's book, which I picked up earlier this week. The first of them talks about his aunts, both older sisters to his own mother, like me the baby of her family, and the end of the essay chronicles the death of his Aunt Lil, "the powerful older sister" of the three. Two passages reminded me of Jean-Pierre: one in death, the other in the way his life lives on. The first was from a cemetery, as my own memories entwined with him two years ago Monday:
After the service, everyone piled into their cars and drove out to one of those vast roadside cemeteries on Long Island. I always find these places incredibly depressing, not because they're filled with dead people, but because the stone markers and careful landscaping have so little to do with those dead people's lives or personalities. These cemeteries seem like filing systems, like some bland, hellish vision of a peculiarly American eternity, a Levittown for the deceased.
Considering that my sisters and I grew up one town to the west of the original Levittown, and Sandy and Jean-Pierre settled one town to the east of it, I couldn't help but be touched by that imagery.
And, likewise, by this imagery, from some time after the loss of his loved one:
During the years following Lil's death, I've noticed that when my mom and Hilda [the other sister] get together, or talk on the phone, they take turns becoming Lil. They tell each other what to do, in no uncertain terms, and they both get irate when the other wouldn't listen; this heartfelt battling keeps Lil alive.
I'd like to think that we four remaining souls of this generation, my sister, our nieces and I- keep the battling down to a dull roar, but that we do honor the memories and preserve the lives of their parents, our sister and her husband, in the lives we do lead. In our cares and concerns and our opinions and offers to always be there for each other. It beats being in Levittown, however metaphorical, any day of the week.
----
As I finished these thoughts, Emily came back in from her date. The boy's mom brought them home, after she and I drove our kids to the movie theater right before 7. I had to have a little bit of levity before letting her out at the curb of the Maple Ridge multiplex:
Me (affecting my best Nice Jewish Mudda voice): So do I get to meet this nice boy? What does he do? Are his parents nice?
Her: Dad. You've MET him.
Me: Yeah, but well, back then he was just a guy, you know? Now he's a suitor for the heart of my only daughter.
Her (increasingly stern): You are NOT meeting him while wearing gym shorts.
(I'd recently returned from cardio when it was time for her to leave.)
Me (not skipping a beat): You want me to take them off?
Her: Can I, just,....
Me (still on roughly the same frequency): Curl up in a corner,....
Her: ...and DIE?!?!?
Even she admits, though, she'll miss this kind of banter if I'm ever not around to offer it.
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no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 02:00 pm (UTC)Thank you for that. It comforted me.
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Date: 2009-11-07 04:11 pm (UTC)MadDad People'?no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-07 11:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-09 02:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-08 05:45 pm (UTC)Glad the date went well!