la Tristesse dans nos Rue

A woman I admire, Claude Crespy, passed away this morning at the age of eighty. She lived just down from me here on the opposite side of rue Ferlus. We had a rendez-vous for tea last Thursday. I took her the last of the lemon bars I made from the Meyer lemons.

I had just come to know her in the quiet of last winter when I came here to hole up and write. K and M, from whom I bought this house, introduced us. They knew I was a gardener with only a container garden on the patio here and that Claude had a large garden space just down the road in the countryside. We went to her garden several times together, to pick flowers or apples and sit in the sun. I made an apple crisp for her and my other neighbors from the apples from her tree.

Claude was a highly educated single woman who had been born in this village and grown up here. Her parents used to be the proprietors of one of the small groceries here. She carried a lot of the history of the village in her heart. She had traveled and lived outside the village for awhile and spoke English quite well, once upon a time. She came back and was living in a part of the house in which she grew up.

She had a stroke a year ago November and it was tough going at first. Even though her garden is just a little over a block from her house, she would drive down there from the disabled parking space the village marked out for her here on the street, unlock the gate and hobble in using two canes to spend time there. Last Fall, she was easily fatigued and had taken to giving me the key to the garden gate so that I could stay longer when she needed to go home and lie down.

But she was looking better when I arrived this year. Her hair had been colored again and permed. She was walking more easily and getting out to see friends more often. She shared some fleurs de coing japonais, flowering quince branches, with me from her garden last week that grace the table in my study even now.

My next door neighbor, Elodie, did cleaning and grocery shopping for Claude for awhile after her stroke. It was Elodie who came by to make sure I knew about Claude this afternoon just as I was listening to this song. The music brought tears to both of our eyes as it played in the back room and we spoke of Claude.

Il vaut mieux pour elle. Elle était une femme solitaire, said Elodie. It was better for her. She was a solitary woman. She would have been very unhappy in the maison retraite retirement home with all the others, we agreed.

We already miss you, Madame Claude Crespy.

May flights of angels sing thee to thy sleep.

Baisers de la tristesse.

N2

The Little Things

I was looking for decorations that weren't too tacky for the Daughter's Baby Party and I passed the rack of cards at the Dollar Store, where they have perfectly good cards, two for $1. I started for the Easter card selection, thinking I'd get one to mail to my sister Martha. She loves getting...

And then I stopped myself, you know how you do if you've lost someone to death, even the death of a friendship or love relationship... I won't be doing that anymore. I can't send Martha a card, that she will receive where she is now, anyway.

My Mom has been gone just past twelve years now and I still catch myself, when I come back to town from traveling, thinking about visiting her at the house that she rented within walking distance from mine for her last nine years.

Shortly after Martha passed, I spent an afternoon and evening sorting through her picture albums and a suitcase of her treasures with my sisters Sue and Cindy. We worked and talked around the table on the patio until it got too dark to see what we were doing. We gave it up for the day and went to dinner at a restaurant where Martha and I used to go.

Among the jumble contained in the suitcase were little things that Martha used to have on a knick knack shelf in her room. I took a few of those for momentos -- a tiny blue bird figure that reminded me of the glass "blue bird of happiness" that used to sit in my Mom's front window, a couple of miniature owls, two blown glass dachshunds that I remember being in my parent's whatnot cabinet in every dining room of every house in which we lived, a mini RCA tin containing needles to an old windup record player Mom gave away when we moved back from England when I was twelve, a letter N sealing wax stamp that caught my father's fancy decades ago in Williamsburg.

I gave the owls to the Son and Daughter-in-Law. The other little things sit here and there on my window sills, catching the light, spilling colors from my past.

Wishing you sweet memories, my Dears.

x0 N2

Hands On

Off to the Missouri mid lands for my sister Martha's funeral.

My dear friend Penelope helped me put together a little pamphlet for the memorial service.

There were two services going on at the funeral home that day, the old fashioned mid American send off and the hands-on, heart felt family tribute. We were the latter party.

The funeral director that we dealt with was very helpful and caring. He seemed curious about our alternative approach to honoring our dead sister and genuinely touched by our simple memorial service lead by a few words from our oldest brother and then followed by memories and thoughts from the family and friends who had gathered to honor Martha.

A friend in The Scrambled Eggs, my wonderful writing group back in CA, sent out this picture as a prompt which brought up the following piece from me about the funeral.

Hands

The soul is still in the body until it is laid in the ground. Unless we wash and oil and wrap the body, the soul will be trapped, will not leave, will not rest, my sister says. I am skeptical: her dead body is an empty vessel. How can it matter now? We five women, sisters and friends, gather in the salon just behind the funeral chapel where the memorial service will take place. The others begin tenderly washing the body of my sister, now two weeks dead, as I stand to the side, still a little in shock at my first sight of the body. Her left hand is blue with frozen blood; her vacant eyes, lids stained purple rose and thankfully closed. Her wavy red hair, streaked with silver, is clean and shiny. I touch the tips of the fine, soft strands streaming out above her head on the gurney where she lays, a waxen mound of clay, unmoving under the cold, wet cloth wiping her shoulder, her arm, her leg. We anoint the body with rose oil, on the forehead, the eyes, the lips, hands and feet, over her heart. We help the two nurses among us roll and gently lift her onto a draw sheet so that we can more easily move her over on top of the pure white muslin shroud laid out on a parallel table. We remove her worn, blue hospital gown, keeping her center covered with white towels. We slide her across in one go. Then lift her head and slip it through the neck opening in the plain chemise. We wrap layers of the thin cloth around her, which just meet, at the center of her large, rounded stomach. We tie the layers in place with strips of muslin at her ankles and waist. My sister tucks her hair into a white kerchief. I slip the pack of Skip-Bo cards that we used to play our last game behind the lopsided bow at her middle. Once she is securely swaddled, her face seems to relax, her body to lighten. Our group of women stands around her head, our clasped hands surrounding the stilled face of my youngest sister, encircling her one last time. After our family memorial service, as we walk with the simple blue coffin through the cemetery to the gravesite, I feel the bloodless hands of unquiet souls reaching out toward us, longing for a last loving touch. Hugs from CA. x0x0x0 N2

Day 36: The Other Side (l'autre côté)

Hello Dear Friends,

My heart is heavy today, as my youngest sister Martha died this morning very unexpectedly. I had already made arrangements to travel back to CA to see her in the CCU where she was being treated for "blood clots in her lungs and sepsis" (massive inflamatory response of the body).

Two of my sisters drove down from Oregon on Tuesday to see that she received the best of care. They and our brother-in-law who lives nearby were all with her when she slipped away at 4:59 am this morning.

I talked to Martha on the phone Monday and Tuesday from here in France and she was joking and giving out I.love.you.'s up to the last minute. Several workers from the rehab center came over to the hospital to check on her yesterday. They said she was the light of the center while she was there.

My sister Martha was the youngest of ten children, seven girls and three boys, in our Boston Irish Catholic/Bible Belt Baptist clan. She was born with Down's Syndrome and grew up well loved at home in the center of our family.

We will all miss her generous heart, red hair, smiling face, sense of humor, caring touch and prodigious Skip-Bo playing abilities.

Good-night, dear Martha,

sleep well,

may "flights of angels

sing thee to thy rest."

Loving you from the other side,

N2

Day 35: Think of Martha. Now!

Had a more frivolous post in mind but I've been on the phone to the CA checking on my youngest sister who was suddenly transferred last Sunday to the ER from the rehab facility where she was gradually recovering from hip surgery. She sounded stronger yesterday when I talked to her, but today it is not looking so good.

Anyone out there?

OK. I need you to focus all your healing energy and send it to my sister Martha.

Or just send it to me and I'll pass it on.

I know it sounds desperate, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Think of it as the Psychic Unity Hotline. My Mom used the Unity Hotline a lot in the last ten years of her life and was a true believer. She'd call the 800 number and put in your request for 24 hours of prayer for whatever you needed -- love, health, a job, more money to pay the bills...

The Psychic Unity Hotline is not an organized religion, it comes together the instant it is needed. And that moment is now. Think of Martha. Send her all the love and healing power you can muster.

I'll check back later today.

x0 N2