My ex's--my dear, dear friend's--father died this week. I have spent several days with him upmost in my mind, and yesterday we gathered around his funeral in the Jewish cemetery in White Rock where Susan's mother is buried, and we acknowledged and honoured his life and the emotion of those who loved him most. We returned to Susan's to eat and talk. We took breaks, more people came and others left. We ate more, and prayed the Kaddish.
Though I have seen him little in the last several years, Susan's father has been a nearly daily part of my life as I listened to her tales and heard her struggles in supporting a spirited, stubborn man who was in his hundredth year when he died. Now he is dead, and while the prayers continue, and the legal and practical work awaits, there is something gone from our lives that will never be again. There is, amidst the clatter of dishes and the singing of psalms, a silence profound and permanent. Philip is gone. Susan's parent is no more.
In the face of this, my own transition seems small, and yet for me it is substantial. In two days the contents of the garden will in large part be moved, and three days later everything else I own will begin to find its way to my new home. It will take years to sort it out, I'm sure. But not so terribly long to make the bed, put the toothbrush in its holder, figure out where to put my books.
In both of these transitions, people have gathered. Not dozens, not hundreds, not necessarily the ones we might have expected in every case. But they have come together although they did not have to and have made what seemed impossible something of beauty and gratitude.
One friend who joined in the first round of moving (to the place I never quite moved into), had not been in touch for years. But somehow I thought, what the heck, and asked, and he came, girlfriend in tow. Another brand new friend who is helping--boyfriend in tow--is the woman who is moving into my old dear apartment. How amazing is that?
Two of my nephews, my friends, people I see seldom, people I see often--one woman I have not seen in forty years, but she is coming with her truck, and we can smile at each other again.
This is community. We can feel so damned alone sometimes, can feel and be isolated, can feel and be imperfect friends. And then some huge transition comes along, cancer, or childbirth, or moving, or death, and suddenly we see reflected in the faces around us the love they feel, the generosity they hold, the meaning of people living our lives together in a difficult world.
I am grateful. I am profoundly moved. (I hope I don't really take years to unpack everything.)
The blessings of this rich and varied life, revealed once more.
