Dear Good Friends:
I write this 2008 fall evening from a new address: 2225 Alpine #2A, Helena, MT 59601. It’s a 1,000 square feet of simple, one-floor condo space, four miles south and east across Helena from 922 Choteau. From my windows, I watch sun and moon-rise over the Big Belts; evening light shimmering on a silver band of Missouri River; and goofy gangs of yearling deer chasing each other along a ravine.
In 1986, our home on Choteau was, for Dave and for me, that new country with improbably wonderful views—and the sweet clichéd graces of a Russian olive tree for the girls to climb, the raspberry patch, a mantel from which to hang Christmas stockings, a 50s family rumpus room, the garage/rabbitry. Without Dave, the graces grew dark.
I’d looked at condos idly until this one came along. And once I said “yes” in May, I began the singular process of holding on tight and letting go——of remembering and reliving and of saying goodbye. For four months, the signs that defined Dave and our family framed my days. So did anticipation. I am not “happier than before,” but I savor this space and the possibilities that it prompts to reconfigure time and loss, memories and friendships, work and words.
My move has been tough for Em and Amanda especially. But all three–Heather, Emily, and Amanda, and their families–have been gracious and accepting. They seem, from where I sit, to be doing well even as they cope with change, loss, and life’s everyday stuff. This year, Heather and Coby hosted an art show in their historic building gallery space and added a puppy to their family. Emily and Sergio, four-year old Memo and 18 month-old Mathilda, summered in the North Fork. In the fall, Emily began graduate classes at Boise State—and joins Sergio in juggling everything from Halloween costumes to research to pre-school schedules. In July, Amanda worked on a fire crew in California’s blistering heat. This fall she began a new first grade and gifted and talented teaching assignment near Kalispell—and is adapting to the routines of a new school and the possibilities of a new town.
My work at Rocky Mountain Development Council changed again in the midst of the move. I continue to manage our Senior Center’s activities for 16 hours each week. And for 20 hours more, I now help out with the Retired Senior and Volunteer Program—faster-paced work that integrates a little more easily into Senior Center chaos—flu clinics, pinochle tournaments, around-town trips.
In this quiet space, toward the end of an amazing year, I savor especially:
- the completed and glorious Montana history textbook—Dave’s dream;
- knowing that the library will never, ever run out of comforting mysteries or breathtaking poetry;
- larch so autumn bright-gold that they set a rainy Swan Valley day on fire;
- watching Mr. Noodle sleep—four delicate paws up;
- sweet reunions with friends and colleagues I’d not seen for too long;
- playing hooky from work to watch Mama Mia on a hot summer morning in a cool theater;
- the building-block gifts of practical help, no-nonsense suggestions, well-placed teasing, and pure caring from so many of you who understand so much.
I am thinking tonight of all the casualties and treasures that you have known this year, of the holding on and letting go asked of you: new books, new jobs, new homes, retirements, awards and honors, sobering loss, frightening illness, magical travel, renewed health.
May you be whole. May the alchemies of returning sun and a new year bring you only warmth and healing.
SIGNS
My friend said what was hardest were the signs
her mother left behind: a favorite dress
misbuttoned on a hanger; library books
covered in paper bags, way overdue;
a flowered cup she’d broken and glued back
crookedly, so the petals didn’t match.
Her mother came to visit every year
and mined the house with madeleines that broke my friend’s heart every time she pulled open
a cabinet her mother had straightened.
Another friend said he waited for months
that turned to years after his father died
for a sign promised from the afterworld.
My friend said he would set up little traps:
if the light turns green. . . if the doorbell rings. . . if the leaf falls before the count of five . . . .
meanwhile his favorite maple shed its leaves,
replaced them, lost a branch in a windstorm,
burned gold—seasonal incarnations galore,
which my friend missed waiting for his dad’s sign.
These stories came when I was full of grief
about my own losses, wondering what,
if anything, my words could do for those
broken on the hard edge of the world.
Vanity, I thought, this is vanity.
Roll up your sleeves and do something useful!
But here on paper, I fit piece to piece
until the roses match, the cracks are sealed,
the cup fills to the brim, and over the brim.
Drink, my sad friends, be briefly whole again.
THAT MOMENT
when astronauts disappear behind the moon
and all contact with them is lost
until they reappear again; or when
firemen enter the burning building
and flames leap out of the hole they entered;
or during wartime as the train pulls out
of the station, a desperate hand waves
from the window, a voice calls out a name,
a voice the named one never hears again,
or when your child merges with a crowd—
those everlasting separations from
the people you love, the places you love,
to which you were intending to return.
But the moment passes; the train arrives;
you enter a new country, fall in love,
marry, and build a house with postcard views
of snow-capped mountains, babbling brooks—
clichés you never knew would feel so good.
But as you look out savoring the scene,
a chain of other mountains rises up,
a ghostly face composes in the clouds,
a loss you never thought you would survive,
but here you are far stronger, more at home
and happier than you ever were before.
Those hard moments that take your breath away,
and literally will do so at the end,
pile up like casualties and treasures, both.
Hold on tight! Could be the first commandment
for this life, and the second, Let it go!
Only the empty hand is free to hold.
Julia Alvarez from the The Woman I Kept to Myself
