more beautiful days and hard things

The weather here has been frequently beautiful -- the kind of early fall days Angela loved. On the weekend Rosie and Gloria and I, along with Teresa who came down from Loyola for the day, went to the Indiana Dunes to meet with our friends from Communion and Liberation -- there were many people there from places in Indiana, and college students from Notre Dame, Purdue, and other spots, so we knew relatively few of the people. But we went on a beautiful hike, and I thought of how much Angela loved to hike, and how she had done this very hike herself a year ago (while I stayed at the picnic site waiting for AAA to come and unlock my car in which I had left the keys, with the engine running). The beauty of nature was quite overwhelming, as was the beauty of singing together on the dunes -- but again this was one of Angela's favorite things, and it was hard not to have her there even as I appreciated everything and everyone around me. This is the way of it now, I guess. There are still so many reminders of her, and at the same time so many things that reinforce and underline the fact of her absence.

Next Saturday I am going to sing in a small choir at the wedding of one of the younger men in the CL community. I thought initially this would not be too difficult for me, but I may have misjudged things. On Sunday at our rehearsal I discovered that we are singing the "Servant Song" (Richard Gillard) at the Offertory -- a song that always made Angela cry, a song about the mutual service of Christians for one another, that she always understood as having special reference to marriage, and that I have since understood especially in connection with her last year -- a song about sharing in Christ's love and agony, holding the light of Christ for one another in the nighttime of our fear, and singing together in harmony at the end of time... I hope that I can make it through the singing of this song, and the wedding ceremony in general, without breaking down. Angela always loved weddings, though she would always cry at them.

Then, Monday, Gloria and I went to the cemetery and made arrangements for a headstone -- a double stone for Angela's grave and mine, with a simple design giving our names, dates of birth and death, and date of our marriage, as well as the inscription Angela wanted for her epitaph ("O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!") and room for one for me to choose later. This took more than two hours, and afterwards I went to the bank and arranged to have her name removed from our accounts and our mortgage. In the evening Gloria and I went to see a somewhat silly movie that I would no doubt have taken Angela to see were she still alive -- "My Tale of Two Cities," a sort-of documentary made by (and about) a guy who grew up in Pittsburgh, became a Hollywood screenwriter (St. Elmo's Fire), and then returned to Pittsburgh around 2000 to become a film professor at Pitt. Angela would have loved some things about this quirky little film -- its use of Mr. Rogers, for example -- but I think she would have noticed the absence of any portrayal of the sheer physical beauty of Pittsburgh's geography. In any case, this was yet another place where her absence was obvious to me.

Today I finished packing up her office and turned in the keys -- the boxes and files will be moved into a semi-vacant office in the Philosophy department later in the week. It was very strange to think that I will never again have occasion to visit that office, to drop by just to say hello to her, to meet her there after work to walk home. She was so happy to have gotten that office, and she had beautifully organized it just before her seizure last August. Packing all her things strengthened my resolve to see her book project through to completion.

I keep coming on new facets of my situation -- one that struck me today as I ran into a new colleague who has just moved here and he introduced me to his girlfriend, is that he simply never knew Angela, and as time passes more and more of the people around me will be people who never knew me as married to Angela, and never knew her -- I can show them pictures or talk about her but that is worth little compared to the experience of actually meeting her.

After Angela died, Lucia instituted a custom in our house of lighting a candle at dinner and singing a song Angela loved in remembrance of her. Rosie and I have been carrying this on at home, and yesterday I remembered the song "To Be Your Bread" which was sung at our wedding:

Refrain: To be your bread now, be your wine now,
Lord, come and change us to be a sign of your love.
Blest and broken, poured and flowing,
gift that you gave us, to be your body once again.

1. We come to your table with our lives as they are.
Heal us Lord, for we are broken; make us one again.

2. Lord, we stumble through the darkness of night.
Lead us, now, O Lord, we follow; bring us home to you.

3. Give us the bread and wine that bring us to life.
Feed us, and we'll never hunger, never thirst again.

When Angela was in the hospital after her mastectomy, almost ten years ago, I stayed the night. She was scared and asked me to sing to her and this song was what came into my mind and what I sang, and it brought her peace that night. And so Rosie and I sang it for her last night. And tonight we sang a hymn that was sung at my best man Bob King's wedding, "The King of Love my Shepherd is," another song that made her cry then:

The king of love my shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never;
I nothing lack if I am his
And he is mine for ever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul he leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love he sought me,
And on his shoulder gently laid,
And home rejoicing brought me.

In death's dark vale I fear no ill
With thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread'st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never:
Good shepherd, may I sing thy praise
Within thy house for ever.

Both of these songs have brought me comfort and peace. Last night I dreamed that Angela and I were sitting on a bench outside in our winter coats, she half asleep, I holding her in my arms, and I leaned over and kissed her and said "I love you so much, Angela." She woke up and said "What did you say, honey?" and I repeated "I said how much I loved you" and she smiled. And so I do love her still. But this dream too made me happy, rather than stricken.