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Finding Francis

Finding Francis

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It’s not as if I had lost him, or didn’t know about him at all. But there was a bit of the miraculous in what happened yesterday.

I was facing a difficult situation at work, a delicate, pretending-like-everything-is-okay-but-it’s-really-not situation. And that, on top of the grief and worry, was making for some desperate hours. I needed quick relief, an instant infusion of calmness and strength. So for some reason — I’m not sure why — I googled a 16th-century saint, Francis de Sales.

This is not St. Francis of the Franciscans, namesake of Pope Francis. This is the other Francis. I know about him because my parish priests are of his order, the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, and his writings are sometimes reprinted in the bulletin.

Still, googling saints is not something I do in times of trouble. I’m more likely to pace or bite my nails. Nevertheless, the impulse was so strong that it was like reaching for Motrin when I feel a headache coming on. There was the near certain promise of relief. I knew this was what I was supposed to do.

So I found this: “Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, even if your whole world seems upset.” And this: “Have patience with all things but chiefly have patience with yourself.” And this: “The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will care for you tomorrow and every day. Either he will shield you from suffering or give you unfailing peace to bear it. Be at peace then and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginings.”

Yesterday I found Francis when I needed him the most.

The Word

The Word

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It’s been more than a week now since my mother passed away. The wake and funeral are behind us. Closets have been cleaned, clothes sorted, papers boxed for another time. The Kleenex box is almost empty. This is not a good time to run out of tissues!

What I’m searching for, I realize, is not closure but continuance. How will Mom go on? I can save a few of her sweaters and dresses, plenty of photographs and other memorabilia — but what I want most are the words she’s written.

Father Linh, who said Mom’s funeral mass, wisely made the Word his theme. “In the beginning was the Word,” he said. In the Word we find eternal life.

Mom started the Museum of the Written Word. She dealt with words all her life. She didn’t write as many words as she had hoped. But she encouraged others to write them. One of them was me. I best get on with it.

Eulogy

Eulogy

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I don’t even know if I’ll be able to go through with it, but I hope I will. Today at Mom’s funeral I hope I’m able to stand up and say a few words about her. It’s a sad duty, but an important one. Because she can no longer speak for herself, we must speak for her.

But how to do that? How to sum up a life in a few paragraphs?

No choice but to plunge in, to type words on a page, print the page, edit the page, add some new words, remove some old ones. No choice but to try and do it. Because the eulogy is not just for the person who is gone, of course; it’s for all of us still present, all of us who must keep on living.

People and Place

People and Place

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The long drive west, this time with new eyes. Wondering how often I will make this trip with Mom and Dad both gone. Still, when the people are gone, the people become place. So visiting the place becomes a way to be with the people.

Here in the house every sight my eye lights on is filled with thoughts of Mom. Here is the dining room with its Chinese screen print, the vase I bought her in New York City’s Chinatown, the bird prints that go back as far as memory.

In the family room, her books on writing are stacked on the organ bench. I can barely look at them. Those were the books whose ideas we’d talk about for the Museum of the Written Word, some of them I gave to her. Books on Cuneiform script or the Dead Sea Scrolls. The books stand for all of Mom’s projects, all the big ideas she had and never quite completed.

At home in Virginia I’m well insulated. Here in Lexington, I’m raw. This is what we must do, I know; this is part of grieving. To look, to see and remember, is as painful as it is necessary.

Suzanne Concannon Cassidy, 1926-2015

Suzanne Concannon Cassidy, 1926-2015

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My mother died on a crisp autumn Saturday afternoon a few minutes before 3 p.m. She had been ailing for some time, but the end came quickly.

When my father died, it was easier to put the words into some order, to describe the indescribable.  But for Mom — a writer, the founding editor of two magazines and creator of the Museum of the Written Word — I’m having trouble. She was my mom, after all, and I was so close to her.

Last Sunday I slept on a strange little pull-out couch next to her hospital bed. I woke up throughout the night and looked at the glowing orange numbers of her pulse-oxygen meter. Admittedly not the most restful sleep.

But at about 5:30 a.m. I dozed again and dreamed that Mom and I were taking a trip together. She was driving a car — barefoot and in her hospital gown. At some point I realized this was not the best way to be tootling around the countryside. “I should take the wheel,” I said to myself. And I did.

It was not a subtle dream, but it was comforting.  It was helping me know that life will go on. I’m not sure exactly how, but it will.

Continuous Loop

Continuous Loop

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In the hours I’ve spent at Mom’s bedside recently I’ve found myself staring at a TV screen playing a continuous loop of nature shots. There is some New Agey music that goes with it, what we used to call Muzak, only with an airier, lighter touch. But the sound is usually turned off, so I’m looking at photographs without the benefit of soundtrack.

One thing I’ve noticed is the similarity of the shots. Though the landscapes may be of mountains, seascapes or red-rock deserts, the foreground is usually green. There’s a reason for that, I believe, something to do with our earliest origins, the safety of enclosure giving way to an open view. Splendor in doses. Domesticated wilderness. 

All I know is that it is mesmerizing. I look at Mom, I look at the screen, I think of all that can be held in a head and a heart.

Sunday To-Do List

Sunday To-Do List

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Yesterday was for catching up: on walks, laundry, sleep, the sound of my children’s voices. One from Africa, where it was just dark and couscous was on the stove top. Another from Fairfax, back home after a long shift at a second job. And still another from just upstairs, which can be the longest distance of all but thankfully was not this time.

Sundays are often like this, touching base with the people I love. But after a vacation I remember to include myself in this number.

I cross some chores off the list but then find time to plop in the hammock and read the paper. I dose off, rally, focus once again on the book review, then put it aside entirely to listen to the insects and watch the leaves wag in the early evening light.

Full Circle

Full Circle

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Our neighbors are expecting their first grandchild, due any day now. These folks have lived next door since we moved into the house 26 years ago. I remember their daughters as little kids and they remember my daughters as babies.

It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that we would stay in the house more than a quarter century (maybe two years?!), but stay put we have, and the staying and the putting have brought a great full-circle quality to life that almost makes up for the years lost to traffic jams and Metro delays.

So on this red-letter day for my family — one daughter celebrating a birthday and another learning that a long wait will soon be over  — I pause to savor the richness of it all — and to give thanks.


(Two rush hours, two red-letter days, much gratitude.)

A River Runs Through It

A River Runs Through It

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A family wedding brought us to Montana, so yesterday we gathered on the banks of the Gallatin River (of A River Runs Through It fame) to celebrate the bride and groom as they begin their life together. The vows were handwritten and heartfelt. I’ve known the bride since she was born, and her parents since before they were married.

Later, in a tent under the vast northern sky, we ate and drank and danced until the band stopped playing. The bride had hauled her couch down to the meadow for photographs, and the sight of that familiar piece (I’ve seen it in Indianapolis and Missoula and now here, in Big Sky) and the bride’s father’s toast likening marriage to a river brought all the circle-of-life feelings to an intense and memorable pitch.

The professional photographer didn’t want us snapping many shots of our own, but I couldn’t not take this picture. To me, it says it all.

The Art of Eating Crabs

The Art of Eating Crabs

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Yesterday there was a graduation in Maryland, so after the congratulations and the photographs and the appetizers it was time for the main culinary attraction — that would be the Maryland blue crabs.

They start off blue but by the time you eat them they are red from the steaming and the seasoning. And eating them is an art. First you pull off the legs, then you find a little tab on the underside of the shell that opens up the critter — almost like a can with a pop top. Then you scrape off the gills and eat the meat inside. You save the claws for last, cracking them with a nutcracker or pounding them with a mallet. The meat is delicious!

Yesterday I sat next to some accomplished crab pickers who made the difficult look easy and left a pile of picked-clean shells. “Eating crabs is not just about eating,” said one of the experts. “It’s about sitting around and talking, the whole experience.”

And this was true. Because it takes so long to eat a crab — and because you have to eat so many of them to fill up — the meal is long and the stories fly. We talked about history and the Bible and Willie Nelson and the singer Meat Loaf, the stories unspooling, the crab shells flying and the perfect May day winding down into dusk.