Sunday, October 15, 2006
Sunday Morning - Time, Distance and Lament for a Friend
"Memory, you have the key" wrote T.S. Eliot (Rhapsody on a Windy Night, Prufrock and other Observations). There are times when memories come crowding in without explanation. I don't look for the key; it is not important.
Sunday doesn't have that special meaning for me that it has for those who are employed. But on Sunday mornings I spend more time listening to music than on other days. I enjoy Bach -- both his choral and secular compositions; the blues, and unusual musicians like Anouar Brahem.
Sunday doesn't have that special meaning for me that it has for those who are employed. But on Sunday mornings I spend more time listening to music than on other days. I enjoy Bach -- both his choral and secular compositions; the blues, and unusual musicians like Anouar Brahem.
Sidney Bechet is on, playing "Nobody Knows The Way I Feel Dis Mornin". Earlier I listened to Bach's Cantata BWV 82 (Ich habe genug) by the great mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson. Lieberson died of breast cancer in July 2006. She was fifty-two. Santiniketan in West Bengal, India, is a long way from the San Francisco Peninsula. Perhaps it was Lieberson and Bach's music that made me think of a friend who died there a few weeks ago. He had lung cancer, suffering from pain and the degradation that the disease causes and didn't want to continue with medication. I don't believe in an "after life", in tomb stones, or urns full of ashes. I accept the "blank certitude of death". Yet the loss of a friend is painful.....it lingers. And sometimes memories of days long past are triggered by a soundtrack on an album, a sentence in a book, or a flower in my garden.
Shibji died surrounded by people who loved him. In the October 10th issue of New York Times there was an essay (Friends for Life: An Emerging Biology of Emotional Healing) by Daniel Goleman that resonated. The essay included the following:
*
Anthropologist Theodora Kroeber ,author of Ishi In Two Worlds, was an extraordinary woman. She died of cancer on July 4, 1979. Here is a poem that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle some years back.Shibji died surrounded by people who loved him. In the October 10th issue of New York Times there was an essay (Friends for Life: An Emerging Biology of Emotional Healing) by Daniel Goleman that resonated. The essay included the following:
- "My friend has reached that point where doctors see nothing else to
try.On my last visit, he and his wife told me that he was starting
hospice care.
- One challenge, he told me, will be channeling the river of people who
want to visit into the narrow range of hours in a week when he
still has the energy to engage them.
- As he said this, I felt myself tearing up, and responded: "You know,
at least it's better to have this problem. So many people go through
this all alone.
- He was silent for a moment, thoughtful. Then he answered softly, "You're right."
Poem for the Living
When I am dead
Cry for me a little.
Think of me sometimes
But not too much.
It is not good for you
Or for your wife or your husband
Or your children
To allow your thoughts to dwell
Too long on the Dead.
Think of me now and again
As I was in life
At some moment
it is pleasant to recall.
But not for long.
Leave me in peace
As I shall leave
you, too, in peace.
While you live
Let your thoughts be with
the Living.
---Theodora Kroeber
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson
Bach Cantatas BWV 82 and BWV 199
Craig Smith, Conductor
Orchestra of Emmanuel Music
Label: Nonesuch
Bach Cantatas BWV 82 and BWV 199
Craig Smith, Conductor
Orchestra of Emmanuel Music
Label: Nonesuch
