Weeks pass, no blog. Some blog energies are taken with writing things that might save what had been a good school, as I am chosen to be its Head; much blog energy is taken with watching my mother go through the mysterious process of what seemed very much like giving birth to her soul. The breathing and the tunnel vision looked like labor to me, and the pain… was there pain? God, I hope not. Then there was the cremation agency with their amazing inability to corral paperwork, and the arranging for nurses to visit my father, who between shock and dehydration was in a sorry state. Then there were the death notices to send out to friends far and wide, and the memorial service not to organize because of the far distance of those friends, the drive not to make – yet – to the redwoods, since there were not yet any ashes forthcoming from the cremation agency. But then there was, waiting at the end of the week, the tickets ready in my purse: the symphony.
When Mom was first striken, and Dad could still walk up the steep slope to the first nursing home, to visit her, he read her The Lord of the Rings, which he himself had never before read, not thinking much of fantasy. But she had read it to my brother and me, many and many a time, beginning with The Hobbit. Reading to her was something he could do for her that did not tax her broken memory, did not require her to answer questions like “Do you remember when we…?” some of which sparked a response, and some of which just brought more grief and frustration. But the written word, if we love it, can be held just out of the edge of sight of the mind, each familiar phrase welcomed with a spurt of recognition, bringing the delight of split-seconds of anticipation. He grew to love the story, reading it to her, and having fallen in love with the visual beauty of the films, and it gave long, sure hours of enjoyment to them both in his visits, long stretches of calm joy that she would not have when he himself was striken, not with a stroke, but with the joint-destroying infection of MRSA that left him in a wheelchair after more than a year of periodic hospitalization. Without his visits, and with me far away out of state, she was rolled in front of a television and left to enjoy herself.
Was the presence of that book, any book that she loved, not a Godsend, even though it was not the Bible? Is not any profound work of human genius, that strives to capture the best of the human experience, even if cloaked in elven-grey and walking on hairy feet, worthy of preservation and perusal? The arts of literature, of visual arts like film, of music, are they not as important to life as the getting of money and the wielding of power? Read Everyman to discover some of the great mysteries of the giving birth to the soul: power, beauty, wealth, genius, all are left at the door of death. No-one goes through the door of death with your soul but your Maker, and whatever can guide you to the peace of knowing that, whether it be a New Zealand film-maker or an Oxford don, is a blessing. A hand on an arm, a familiar phrase of Kipling or Frost on the lips, these are the sorts of things that soothe the soul in its time of agony.
The Bible, of course, is rather good at this, as well: I discovered the true purpose of the Song of Songs in reading it to my dying mother, a whole-hearted love-letter to the soul from its Maker. The Psalms are all written for passengers to the grave, and to those on the point of death; how often did David think this night in this cave would be his last? But what if we no longer taught our children the importance of reading literature better than the usual run of the printing mill? or of ever reading the Bible, or thinking of it as some sort of scary object only for use in warding off vampires? Of drawing the sorts of sketches that brought Middle Earth to life in film? or were used to design the glazing of cathedrals? Of composing the sort of stirring music that sent the Rohirrim into battle, or the sort that inspired Howard Shore to compose in the first place, in other words, classical music… Mahler, for example.
At the end of that terrible time in California – and it was terrible, over all, there is no denying it, though the presence of family, their meals and their sympathy, made it bearable – stood the shining event that would be my mother’s memorial service for me, sermon, hymns, processional, requiem, words of comfort, the one thing I really looked forward to and knew wouldn’t disappoint: the Resurrection Symphony of Mahler, performed by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, under the baton (and sometimes just fingers) of Michael Tilson Thomas. I know this piece; I’ve sung it; like a familiar storybook, it had phrases I could anticipate with sweet glee; I knew what it does to the soul, and I needed that very badly. I pulled out two kleenxes, warned my neighbors this could get emotional and why, spotted daughter Tia in the uppermost row, and got ready to be moved from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, and let ‘er rip. It did not disappoint.
So if you need serious comfort, go high, and go deep, reach into the most accomplished creations of the greatest geniuses of the age, creations performed by people at the peak of their powers, endowed with hearts of tremendous generosity and passion, working within difficult bounds of long training and hard discipline but working with a fierce, capable joy, and you will find it. Oh, you will surely find it, if you have a mind trained to it. So we must train our minds to match the height and depth of living, and prepare for the agony of offering up our souls.
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