"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." These are the words on a card we received from friends in Decatur after the word got out about Mom's death. And just these would have been very apt, and deeply resonant of memories that I have of her pointing out constellations: Orion, Cassiopeia, the Pleiades — the Seven Sisters. But what was brought us up short was the poet's name: Sarah Williams.
I looked up this other Sarah Williams in Wikipedia and it turns out that this is the last line of her poem entitled "From the Old Astronomer to Her Pupil" (actually "his pupil", but I take the eulogist's license). She was Welsh, lived a relatively short life in the mid 19th century; as, as far as I can tell, this is the only work of hers remembered today.
"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." Fearless is a word that, I think, describes Mom well.
Betty and Julie have spoken about their older sister's fearlessness and disdain of convention. Betty, the one closest to her in age, described to me this summer how Mom, who was known as ‘Surry' in those days, made up her mind that she wanted to work in the library in Oak Ridge, when she was in her early teens. So she marched into the library and introduced herself to the head librarian and insisted that she be given the job. She got it, and worked there all through high school. And, walking or bicycling to work, she dressed comfortably, rather than conventionally, causing her mother, and her sisters, I imagine, no small amount of consternation.
She was not afraid of doing hard things. She went back to school herself after getting her youngest off to school — she commuted several days a week between August Ga, and Columbia to earn her Masters in Social Work. Then she became a social services caseworker, working and caring for her clients in the midst of the segregated and racially tense small-town south of the late 1960's. She was not afraid of the physically demanding. Without a hint that she thought she was doing anything out of the ordinary, she took up backpacking and kept up with her husband and teenage boys. There are photos of her climbing the rigging on a three-masted schooner off the coast of Maine. And she was not afraid of stepping into the wordless grief of a dear friend who had lost a son to suicide; being with her every day for months, even when she could barely speak.
I had thought that her taking up backpacking was a way to keep up with the boys in her life, to be more a part of their lives. But now, I believe that it was just a much a reflection of her own appreciation that there is more to life than the routines of society and everyday life. I think that being outdoors, under the stars, nurtured her belief that she was part of something much bigger. Her close friend Martha describes their nearly instant and deep connection over the writing of Charles Williams, who portrayed the spiritual life and the life of the senses as being deeply interwoven. And I do think that the physicality of backpacking appealed to a streak of stubbornness that refused to demur just because something was hard or uncomfortable.
As many of you know well, our family — my brothers and our wives — started down a journey 8½ years ago, when our Dad was diagnosed with a lymphoma that took his life 18 months later. Then, over the next several years, we lived with Mom's gradual loss of so much of her ability to care for herself, her becoming bedridden, and finally her dying on Christmas Eve. During this, we have received a number of expressions of admiration for how well we have supported Dad, Mom, and ourselves — whether it was the frequent and honest communication with friends and extended family, the collective and collegial making of difficult decisions, and even bringing Mom to service at our church in Atlanta when the disease was quite advanced and her participation could be - unusual. And we've seen the contrast with other families when the loss of parents brings out divisions and missed opportunities to care for each other. Well, as we were all raised in the South, each of us could say: "That's the way my momma raised me…"
Mom was extraordinarily gifted at loving her family — loving in a constructive, affirming, unconditional way. No doubt it wasn't always easy for her. Three boys and a husband; our Dad was loving and wise in many ways, but was masculine, perhaps to a fault sometimes. One compensation was the rule in our house that all of our pets had to be female. And I think nothing made her happier than her boys bringing daughters into the family through marriage.
Last week, I got an email from Cyndi, letting us know that, with the snow coming, she had prepared the grave in the memorial garden for Mom's ashes. Coming on a Thursday, in the midst of everyday work, it brought me up short, tugged at my heart and put a tear in my eye. Not only would this part of her, her earthly remains, be close to Loren's — she treasured deeply their physical closeness — they will be in the midst of the church that she loved as well. She wasn't born to it. She joined the Episcopal church while in college — she was baptized at St. Stephen's in Oak Ridge in 1952 and confirmed two weeks later. I know that she loved being an active member of Christ's body in the world, she loved the communal life of the parish, she especially loved the rituals and rhythms of the liturgy. Even when she had lost her capacity to communicate with us verbally, she would jump into a prayer, or a response, when we hadn't heard her say anything for a week.
There is no doubt that she would love that as we gather together to let her go and send her on, we use our liturgy to remembering her's, and our, place in the "vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses."
Home | Personal | Professional | News and Updates | Robert | Vacations | Genealogy | Search