Heaven's Coast - Mark Doty [52]
I do not say this to criticize Lynda’s family; when it comes to memorial services, I think gay people have a real advantage over their straight counterparts. We don’t have a big tradition looming over us; most of us don’t have much in the way of a church we can feel comfortable with, and for an awful lot of us what the family wishes just isn’t at the center of things. And so ritual occasions, not hidebound by church or tradition, tend to look a lot like the person they celebrate and mourn. And we have a hell of a lot of practice, too, these fifteen years of epidemic.
I wanted Wally’s service to suit him; he’d taken no interest in it whatsoever, specifying only that he wanted to be cremated, so it was up to me. Without a funeral, it seemed essential—both for me and for his family—to have some event soon after his death that seemed real, signifying, grave. We reserved space in the Unitarian church—complain about it I do, but it’s beautiful, and welcoming—and in the space of a week I had cards printed with a photograph of Wally playing with our cat Thisbe on them, and his name and dates, and a bit of a poem of Rilke’s, in Stephen Mitchell’s translation.
But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some strange way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.
I’d opened the book and there the lines were, from an elegy I’d always loved; they insisted upon themselves. Later I’d think, do I believe this? Just once? Certainly just once this way, this unrepeatable constellation of circumstances, the kaleidoscope shifted this one delicate way. Once, in this body, and gone.
During that week there were obituaries to write and publish, and the minister to meet with, and matters of music and flowers and candles, and programs—and what was going to happen, what would the program say? And food for later. In the worst hour of my life, at my most exhausted and terrified and shellshocked, suddenly I am planning a huge gathering for an unknown number of people, and inviting them all to my house afterward for food and talk. The weirdness of it is the wisdom of it: in the darkest hour, give a party.
Some people plan to speak: Wally’s brothers Mark and Jim, Rena, our friends Richard and Kathryn. And then there’ll be a time for anyone who wants to to get up—and a little singing, a little music. It’s a huge project, and it’s astonishing how much is contributed by how many people, how seemingly effortlessly all this work flows together. Effortless to me, perhaps, because I am floating along on the goodwill and work of so many friends who are showing up and cleaning the house, shopping, cooking, taking care of the details. I’m half aware of being grateful that I can make lists, can think about the things I have to do to be ready for Saturday, can worry about the parts of the whole. I can spend an inordinate amount of time buying candles, getting exactly the right shape and color and number. Feeling keeps leaking through, spilling out, washing me away a dozen times a day, two dozen. But I have this to come back to, to grasp onto, this world of tasks.
And when it happens it’s magic. It’s been the snowiest, iciest January in the history of the planet but suddenly the day’s sunny, perfect, like April, benevolent sun on the U.U.’s clapboard and steeple. Later Michael will say what he remembers best is the sunlight cascading into the sanctuary through high windows. Because the ice is gone Wally’s older relatives can come, can negotiate the steps and walks. The church with its soft gray walls painted in trompe l’oeil columns, its pews with their little medallions carved from whale’s teeth, is full of people. As the planned speakers talk