ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS
Sometimes all you do is take a photograph . . .
or take an old book off the shelf . . .
I bought this silver anthology for myself in May 1975, with money given to me by my Grandfather Paul J. Lindsey for my 18th birthday and my high school graduation. When my mother ~ Paul's daughter ~ died earlier this month, I turned to this book to find the following selections, not because they are included in its contents, but because I knew that for many years they have been tucked in the pages of the chapter on "Death." That's the beauty of an anthology: you can keep adding to it, to your heart's content.
The first yellowed clipping comes from the American spy novelist, Dorothy Gilman (1923 – 2012), best known for the Mrs. Pollifax series:
"Euripides said, I like this. I picture myself about to die. I don't want to leave, but my time is up, my span completed. I say good-by, clinging a little to those people I've loved and enjoyed. I fill my eyes for a last time with the incredible colors and beauty around me and, as I brace myself and begin the struggle of letting go, I feel the darkness sweep over me. I'm precipitated through a long, dark tunnel into a bright light that blinds me. Hands roughly handle me. I cry out in protest and hear a voice exclaim, 'It's a girl, Mrs. G! You've just given birth to a healthy baby girl.' And I have entered what we call life." ~ from A New Kind of Country
'Who knows but life be that which men call death,
and death what men call life?'
The second clipping is one that I discovered in the attic of my Grandmother M. Adeline Carriker's house in 1974, shortly after the passing of my Grandfather Willard S. Carriker. It was already old and crumbling then, even more so now. This one comes from Mary Mapes Dodge (1831 - 1905), best known as the author of Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates (1865):
The Two Mysteries
[Occasionally prefaced thus: “In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man’s face. ‘You don’t know what it is, do you, my dear?’ said he, and added, ‘We don’t, either.’”]
We know not what it is, dear, this sleep so deep and still;
The folded hands, the awful calm, the cheek so pale and chill;
The lids that will not lift again, though we may call and call;
The strange white solitude of peace that settles over all.
We know not what it means, dear, this desolate heart-pain;
This dread to take our daily way, and walk in it again;
We know not to what other sphere the loved who leave us go,
Nor why we ’re left to wonder still, nor why we do not know.
But this we know: Our loved and dead, if they should come this day—
Should come and ask us, “What is life?” not one of us could say.
Life is a mystery, as deep as ever death can be;
Yet, O, how dear it is to us, this life we live and see!
Then might they say—these vanished ones—and blessèd is the thought,
“So death is sweet to us, beloved! though we may show you nought;
We may not to the quick reveal the mystery of death—
Ye cannot tell us, if ye would, the mystery of breath.”
The child who enters life comes not with knowledge or intent,
So those who enter death must go as little children sent.
Nothing is known. But I believe that God is overhead;
And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.
And lastly, from my Grandmother M. Rovilla Lindsey's notebooks:
Death Is Nothing At All
Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
[Not in a "Sunday voice"]
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
Henry Scott Holland (1847 – 1918)
"Kitti, I love your ability to find beauty in the
rubble of our crumbling world. Bless you, my child."
Kind words, kindly meant:
"You have always had such an ability to understand
how someone is feeling and to find some piece in
literature, a poem or lyric that actually crystallizes
those feeling better than they understood to begin with.
I can remember thinking that from first I knew you."
"Thanks, Kitti!
Keep those lovely posts coming.
I enjoy what I learn and am
frequently inspired by your posts!"
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, July 14th
Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com
Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com
