singing through grief like a bird

I do not wish you all a death in the family, but I do hope you all come to know the kindness that has been bestowed since the one in mine. Thoughtful notes by mail and email, and just now, my friend, neighbour and student Liz marched through fresh snowbanks and appeared at the door with a lasagna and some buns ready for the oven, and a beautiful note about dealing with her own mother's death, not that long ago - how, after she died, "any sense of discord I'd harboured evaporated. I was no longer conflicted. I simply wanted to honour her. I also felt a great sense of relief." 

I'm with you there, Liz.

She finishes, "My grandfather died on Christmas Eve, and just as you've suggested, it does provide a time for remembrance unlike any other. Although, truth be known, you will need few prompts. You did her proud, Beth."

Liz and I have Halifax in common. The following haunting quote came in a note from Cathy, who now makes Nova Scotia her home too. "Though sickness and death take their terrible toll and they did and they do - one's astonishing heart almost sings through its grief like a bird - a water bird - in the wind and the waves of some vast salty sea." P.K. Page.

Another poet, Buddhist Patsy on an island on the other coast: I'm wishing you peace, somewhere deep inside the maelstrom of Stuff that will continue to whirl for some time. It's a place where sorrow is the natural environment, and at the same time, a lightness, the lifting of a burden: it's just how it is, and if you can accept that - it's just sorrow, it's just lightness, it's just exhaustion - you will find your way through each day, each night. And may you find ways to touch into that same deep peace and sorrow and lightness in your Auntie Do, and your brother, and your kids, and even your cat. 

Yes, even my cat. Who has barely moved from the sofa in weeks.

From Mum's caregiver Nancy, word that many pairs of very large shoes have found a happy home in a family of very tall women - and the five prosthetic breasts I asked her to find a home for - Mum lost her left breast to cancer - will be donated to a clinic. Louise in Ottawa, friend since 1967 who sometimes played the cello in my father's string quartet, has agreed to play at Mum's memorial, and so will her new husband David, a fellow cellist.

Penny in England has just posted a letter to Auntie Do: I feel very sad for the elders as they lose friends and family. They are so very alone with no-one to share their memories. So I now have a number of solo older people I visit dotted around the country, and I go and listen. Ottawa is a bit far but I can still write letters.

They have astonishing hearts, these friends. No greater blessing. 

English rose

This is the picture we're using for the obituary. I took it in Vancouver on May 6, 1981 - three days after Anna's birth. Mum and Dad flew in from Edmonton, and this was at our apartment just after we arrived home with the baby. Mum had baked fresh scones that were waiting, hot, on the table, and bought spring flowers. She was, herself, a spring flower. Age: 58. 

Jean Harris, Charles Durning and my mother

All day, except for the usual Wednesday sortie to Carol's class and then to the library - and the all-important wine store - otherwise, I have sat here all day and evening at my trusty Mac, dealing with Mum. Writing the obit, getting my brother's approval of the six drafts, finding and fiddling with the photo, booking the hall for her memorial event, sending it all to the "Globe" and the "Citizen." Many calls and emails to and from my brother, to Do, to my kids re travel plans, to professional organizers who might help us sort things out, and to Mum's accountants, my cousin in New York and the lawyer helping with financial matters - because there's confusion over Mum's taxes for 2010, on top of everything else, nothing to do with her death. And replying to many condolences. And blogging to you.

Luckily, I had a fresh bottle of wine to get me through. After 5.

I am eating all the tired bits in the fridge and digging into the freezer, because I leave on Sunday for six days at my mother's condo in Florida. My brother and his family are there now for a 2 week respite, and I'll get a shorter one, both trips booked months ago, before all this. It will be good to back off for a bit. I go down usually not as a vacation but the opposite, to get a lot of work and reading done in the damp silence. This time, not sure what I'll accomplish. I'll try to straighten up my brain.

Noting with interest the other 89-year olds who died in December - Charles Durning, the character actor, and Jean Harris, who murdered her lover Dr. Tarnower in 1980. These two disparate folks are now forever linked in my mind, because they lived exactly the same span of time as Sylvia Kaplan - from 1923 to December 2012. A good long life, for sure.

Saw a friend at the Y; as we ran around, she said, "Oh, and how's your mum?"
"She's dead," I said. I've explained all this so often that I don't want to talk about it any more. But it is a shock to nice people, so I'll refrain from saying that. Again, I am touched and heartened at all the messages pouring in, some from Mum's friends and others from mine, from people who read the blog. Thank you all. I am compiling excerpts from her friends' notes to read at her memorial. For example, from her friend Judy in Edmonton:

An incredibly intelligent, gifted, and fascinating person!  She, like your father, was a person who made everyone she knew feel as if he or she was her special and most valued friend.   She was generous with everything: her money, her time, her interest, her praise, her affection.   She was funny, she was empathetic; she glowed with joie de vivre!

All this busyness is good. Wine is good too, and really a lot of food. But mostly the love of friends, descending on me like a mantle of kindness.

Mum's obituary

Sorry it's so small - unreadable. I can't get the page to increase the size. It will be in the "Globe" and the "Citizen" on Friday and Saturday.

Later: It was there, but now it has vanished utterly. I'll try another way to post it. But in the meantime, for any of you in Ottawa who knew Sylvia Mary Kaplan - there's a celebration of her life on Friday Jan. 18 2013 at the First Unitarian Congregation, 30 Cleary Avenue, at 6.30 p.m. We will talk about her and listen to her favourite music - an excerpt from Mozart's G minor string quartet, Sting's "Fields of Gold," Beatles' "When I'm 64." And afterwards there will be wine - her favourite, Partager - and snacks and more talk.

Hard to imagine, as it always is with this kind of event, that the star, the centre of attention, the person we are all talking about and missing, won't be there. And yet, of course, she will.

Ottawa winter

 View from my mother's window at dawn and midday.

The beginning of a new year. What will it bring? My resolution: to be still, sometimes. As still as this.

Just read my horoscope for the year in the "Globe." Leo: "Life has been curiously tame of late - by your standards anyway - and no doubt you are eagerly thinking of ways to spice things up again..."

WRONG!