Eulogy for my aunt / a thank you, to be dispersed into the universe
Dear N.,
It doesn’t seem possible that you’re gone. Sitting here, trying to compose some thoughts about you, I know that I should be writing them for everyone who’s assembled here. But it is hard to do anything other than to want to talk with you, want you to walk in and be here with us. Your energy, honesty, frankness, sensitivity, openness, and decisiveness would get us moving to do something. You would show us a way to be in this situation. You would have a strong sense of what really mattered and what was unimportant. Without you, we are a little less sure of ourselves on many levels, even though we know you are still with us in our hearts, pushing us on past our own hesitations just like you pushed yourself past your own hesitations, not losing hope even in times of frustration and loss.
If there is any silver lining to this dark, disorienting, and sometimes frightening cloud, it is that her passing has forced me to reflect on things I admire so much about N. that I still aspire to in myself. I admire the way she learned to be a very social person despite being a sensitive, shy child. She was the “glue” for our family, keeping us organized and keeping us in touch with our extended family. When we needed to make plans to get together for Christmas, she was the “hub” of our communications; she would be persistent until plans got made. D. said that this year, she reminded him about reserving the guest room for us at his condominium, several times, cheerfully, until he did it. When we couldn’t figure out what to do or what to have for dinner, she would present some options and make sure a decision got made. If we ignored her, she would try again 15 minutes later until we overcame our stubbornness at least for the moment. She worked at maintaining friendships, and never gave up on people. She taught in schools in small towns all over Kansas and built community everywhere she went. Like me, she sometimes had an inclination to hide from people, but she was never satisfied with doing that for long and she sought and built connections with people of all sorts. I hope I can still learn from the ways she did those things.
I also admire her emotional openness, the way she was able to be who she was and express what she needed while also caring very deeply about other people. It was rare to be around N. and not know what she was feeling. Usually her facial expression said it all. She wasn’t verbally reflective all of the time, but when she and I talked about tendencies we shared, she could often explain exactly what she was feeling and what it meant with devastating accuracy. That was a side of her personality I’m not sure everyone saw, but I’m glad she shared that with me. She cared a lot about what other people were thinking and feeling, but she never let that get in the way of being who she was. I don’t think she knew any other way to be. She was honest and upright to a fault. If somebody in the family wanted to explore a scenic area by the river that had been marked “no trespassing,” N. would make it clear that we weren’t really supposed to be doing that.
Another thing N. shared with me, which I admire and treasure, was her faith and her intellect. Going to church was an important part of N.’s life. She cared about the message and the community. She couldn’t stand proud religious people who didn’t live their faith; she was humble, and she lived the spirit of generosity. She always was thinking about the people in her life and what they might need. When D. and I went to her apartment this week, it choked me up to see a pile of Christmas presents for us, already wrapped, in a corner. That is so emblematic of her-not only thinking ahead, but thinking about our needs, sometimes understanding them better than we understood them ourselves. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t wear some item of clothing she gave me-today, the jacket and the socks I have on. That was N., to be concerned about the mundane details of whether we had adequate socks and underwear, and not too proud to buy them for us, even in the years when her own finances were very lean.
N. was generally one to live her faith rather than talk about it a lot, but she had, at one point in her life, gotten fascinated with the works of Sören Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher-theologian. N. was not known for being a reader, at all. And Kierkegaard is known for being verbose, dense, abstract, subtle, and complicated. But something in his work spoke to her, and she bought, over the years, a complete collection of his works. When I began to develop interests in philosophy and theology myself, she passed most (and eventually all) of this collection on to me. Partly, she was done with doing a lot of intensive reading. But she was also excited to share something with me that she was excited about. (I am in a PhD program in the humanities, and the kind of work I do tends to be abstract and complicated. N. listened to me talk about it and challenged me to write something that would be relevant, readable, and edifying for people without PhDs themselves. I don’t know that I’ve risen to the challenge, but it continues to push me, and I hope I will.) She had read every page of Kierkegaard’s complete works. She explained to me how she had gotten through it: when she read Kierkegaard or did emotionally intense artwork, first of all, she had to have a lot of distractions going-preferably both the TV and the radio, at least one “full blast.” Then she would underline what she was reading, often close to every sentence. The really important sentences, though, she would underline heavily and mark in the margins. When my grandmother was dying two and a half years ago, N. asked me to read some Kierkegaard out loud while we were spending time together, and when I did, she found it comforting. So I am going to read a paragraph of Kierkegaard, now, for her that seems relevant to what we are going through.
This passage is from one of Kierkegaard’s more approachable and confessional books, Works of Love. He explores Matthew 22:39, “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” word for word. He writes that the idea of being commanded, thou shalt love, is at bottom a shocking proposition to our normal ways of thinking and living in the world. Isn’t love supposed to be a spontaneous emotion? How can that be duty? He writes:
The commandment of love forbids despair-by commanding one to love…. For when it becomes impossible to possess the beloved in the temporal existence, the eternity says, “Thou shalt love”-that is, eternity saves love from despairing just by making it eternal…. Sit with one who is deep in sorrow; you may soothe for a moment if you have the ability to give expression to the passion of despair as not even the sorrowing is able to do, but it is still false comfort. On the other hand, this “Thou shalt sorrow” is both true and beautiful. I have no right to harden my heart against the pain of life, for I must sorrow; but neither have I the right to despair, for I must sorrow; and yet neither have I the right to cease to sorrow, for I must sorrow. So also with love. You have no right to harden yourself against this emotion, for thou shalt love; but neither have you the right to love despairingly, for thou shalt love; and just as little have you the right to corrupt this feeling in you, for thou shalt love. You must preserve the love and you must preserve yourself, and in preserving yourself you preserve your love. There where the purely human would lose courage, the commandment strengthens; there where the purely human would become weary and prudent, the commandment enkindles and gives wisdom. The commandment consumes and burns up the unsoundness in your love, but through the commandment you will again be able to enkindle it when humanly speaking it would cease.
N., thank you so much for sharing this, and sharing yourself, with all of us.
***
My therapist and I got to talking today about whether I had any unfinished business with you, whether there was anything I needed from you that I couldn’t get now that you are gone. And I realized that the only real thing is that I wish I had thanked you-more often, more sincerely, more deeply. I wish I could have let you know how much your love meant to me. I wish I could be present with you one more time without taking you for granted.
Love,
me