I remember summing up what I took to be our destiny, in conversation with my best friend at Chartres, by the formula, “Term, holidays, term, holidays, till we leave school, and then work, work, work till we die.”
~ C.S. Lewis
When we are young we tend to see life in such terms as Lewis describes. The calendar spins slowly in its endless displacement of one season and one holiday by another.
Except these seasons and holidays are not endless.
Speaking recently to a dear friend I remarked that the time between Thanksgiving and the New Year is a personal favorite. He smiled knowingly and reflected that it used to his, too. But as he is in his ninth decade, things have changed. His beloved wife is gone. His children are old. His grandchildren are grown, with families of their own. The holiday season no longer sparkles as it once did.
Blue Nights is Joan Didion’s tribute to her late daughter, Quintana. As she is in the twilight of her years, her mind floods with the happy memories of watching her little girl grow into a woman. Pictures trigger remembrances of events and experiences gone by, nearly too painful to recall but too painful to forget. Didion reminisces about flying back from Hawaii to California with her so many years ago:
I still see her, in the darkened upstairs cabin on the evening Pan Am
from Honolula to lax.
I know that I can no longer reach her.
I know that, should I try to reach her -- should I take her hand
as if she were again sitting next to me in the upstairs cabin, should
I lull her to sleep against my shoulder, should I sing to her -- she
will fade from my touch.
Vanish.
Pass into nothingness: The Keats line that frightened her.
Fade as the blue nights fade, go as the brightness goes.
Go back into the blue.
I myself placed her ashes in the wall.
I myself saw the cathedral doors locked at six
I know what it is I am now experiencing.
I know what the frailty is, I know what the fear is.
The fear is not for what is lost.
What is lost is already in the wall.
What is lost is already behind the locked doors.
The fear is for what is still to be lost.
You may see nothing still to be lost.
Yet there is no day in her life on which I do not see her.
Instead of acting as if these precious times are endless, we need to treasure each one. Instead of ignoring the pain of those grieving loved ones, we need to offer our love. Instead of despairing that this world’s loss and pain are permanent, we need to remember that one day, God will put this world back to rights.
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