by Sally Quinn
The local vineyard was a few kilometers away, and we were treated to a tour and wine tasting by the owner, a tall, swarthy, Corsican hunk. He was in jeans and a tight-fitting black T-shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair was tousled and he was slightly unshaven. He was also the mayor of the town. When I remarked to him during the tour that I loved the island, he replied suggestively, “Oui, nous sommes très sauvages!”—Yes, we are very wild!
I melted.
Needless to say, I took all my houseguests for the next few weeks to visit the vineyard, and everyone insisted I invite the mayor for dinner. The truth is I really wanted him for more than dinner. I was tempted, but I just wasn’t ready. If I’d been alone, I might well have. Who knows? Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t. I thought the first time after Ben needed to be special. I needed to be with someone I really cared about. It would not have been unlike going to bed with someone for the very first time. I knew I would be ready at some point, and that more than anything I wanted someone to love and to make love to, to love me and make love to me. I knew for sure that I would have that again.
I had been hoping for relief in Corsica and I found it. For me, it turned out to be the best thing I could have done at the time. It was calming and reassuring and full of life. While I was there I happened on this prayer, which I promptly copied onto one of the pages of my calendar: “Raphael, lead us toward those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us. Raphael, Angel of Happy Meetings, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for. May all our movements, all their movements, be guided by your Light and transfigured by your Joy.”
Saint Raphael, an archangel, was not well known to me, but I loved the idea of an angel of happy meetings. It turns out that Raphael is also the angel of marriage, healing, travel, and joy. I immediately adopted him as one of my guardian angels. I love that the words light and joy are together in this prayer. I had been hoping for relief from the dark and some letup of my sadness, and I found that too. A month after I returned from Corsica, I came across this in my astrology readings: “New moon eclipse, dark of the moon, themes of grief and loss, abandonment are arising, purify home and body to become clean. Channel for eclipsing of an old state of life followed by a rebooting of a newly wired system.”
Chapter 23
The meaning of life is ours to create, again and again, for every individual and generation. Only by creating and recreating the fabric of meaning can we live. . . . Meaning is what human beings create from what they see and hear and remember. . . . Meaning is what we weave with each other and with patterns passed down from the past, selecting, discarding, embroidering, twisting the threads together to draw every man and woman and child into a larger whole.
—Mary Catherine Bateson, quoted in More Reflections on the Meaning of Life
What followed Ben’s death was truly a year of mourning—deep and unpredictable and intense. It was a sad and surreal year, when I alternated between feeling totally numb and devoid of emotion and experiencing moods that fluctuated daily or even hourly, from highs to lows and lower lows. Certainly, friends and family were there for me and helped hold me up. Focusing on the quotidian was another big comfort. Those everyday moments somehow, in their very ordinariness, reinforced the idea I could actually take small steps that would eventually move me forward.
For a time I felt untethered, like George Clooney in the movie Gravity, as he floated off into space. I’ve gone from lamentations to saudade, a Portuguese word that has become one of my favorites and seems to have been created just for people who have experienced great losses. Saudade, a longing for someone you love who is absent, or as Wikipedia defines it: “a deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves.”
My days have been filled with saudade. It’s different from grief. It permeates your bones. The Greeks had a word for it too: imeros, or yearning.
As the grief dissipates, saudade remains. As there is a difference between grief and depression, there is a difference between yearning and depression. I’ve not felt depressed since Ben died. Sad, but not depressed. That sadness has morphed into saudade.
The day after Ben’s funeral when I went to visit him at the chapel, he was already under the floor in the aisle under the rug. As I had placed a white rose on his casket at the cathedral, now I was having one delivered to the chapel every Monday. Even though the weather had suddenly turned cold, the chapel was heated. I went every day, sometimes for several hours. It was my place to cry, to find that blessed release. At first I tried sitting on the bench but it was too distanced from him. Then I began to lie on the carpet over his coffin and I felt I could almost feel his arms around me. I could whisper to him that I loved him and he could hear me. It was so peaceful there and so cozy that there were times I almost fell into a trance, times when Ben would come alive and I could feel his warmth as the sun shone through the yellow panes of the stained-glass windows. The few days I couldn’t get there I was almost desperate from missing him. The more I went there, the more I realized how important it was for me that I would have the mausoleum to go to when it was finished.
What both helped and hurt me was being close to Ben during my visits to the cemetery. But at the same time, what made me feel inordinately better was my preoccupation during that year with working on creating the mausoleum. I met often, both at home and at the cemetery, with the architect, Stephen Muse, to start drawing up plans.
From the beginning, I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted the design to represent the two sides of Ben. On the one hand, I felt we needed to somehow depict his love of country, his total Americanness, his belief in and adherence to the highest values and morals of his homeland, and his exuberance in celebrating it. I also wanted the building to show his love for the beauty of nature; his longing for the quiet for contemplation; his need for space for emptying his mind; his days in the woods chopping down dead trees, clearing brush, staring for hours at his bonfires as he burned the day’s offerings.
The idea of a neoclassical building was pretty obvious. Surprising to some, Ben had been a Greek major at Harvard. He loved everything about ancient Greece, glorying in its architecture particularly. Despite having been brought up in Boston, Ben loved everything about Washington. This was his kind of town, and he was a creature of the city. He saw its architecture echoing that of the Greeks. He adored the glistening white marble monuments, almost temples, the classic columns and carved statues. He thought Washington was simple but majestic and viewed the city as grand.
What more fitting surroundings could we give him than a truly Greco-Washington tomb. Stephen and I settled on a small white granite building with three key parts to it: columns, a stained-glass window, and a wooden door behind iron gates. We easily decided on Doric columns as best representative of Ben’s simplicity and unostentatiousness. For the window, Quinn suggested we copy an antique wall hanging Ben had bought at a flea market that had hung in his office for more than forty years. It depicted a furled flag in a bald eagle’s mouth. Because the bald eagle is the official national emblem of the United States, it was also completely apropos.
I wanted the iron gates at the entrance to be in the shape of a tree, similar to the giant oak tree photographed by Ansel Adams, also the official national tree of the United States. The font on the mausoleum would be the font used by the old Washington Post. There is also a verse of one of his favorite poems about trees—and souls—etched on the floor.
There would be room for six caskets. Ben and Quinn and I could all be together. It gave me a feeling of such security. We could always have a home. The three of us are homebodies. As an army brat who never lived in one place for more than a year and a half, little is more important to me than having a permanent home. It was to Ben, too. When I say home, I’m not just speaking of a dwelling, but of a psychological home, an emotional home, a spiritual home. To me a home is where love is and love is where home is. Ben and I created a home for each other and for Quinn. I believ
ed this would one day be a new home where we could be together. Wherever Ben was, that is where home would be. The main thing is I wanted to exalt Ben. Someone asked the artist Elaine de Kooning, widow of the great painter, Willem de Kooning, what it felt like to paint in her husband’s shadow. She replied, “I don’t paint in his shadow. I paint in his light.” I had the good fortune to live in Ben’s light.
* * *
Rituals had become a very important aspect of my spirituality. They offer access to a well of comfort and divine connection in my life. This was not always the case. Before Quinn was born, rituals were not of interest to me. In fact, I was revolted by them. I scorned them when I was even younger. I found them shallow, mawkish, self-indulgent. Thinking about my feelings then, I can see that a lot of what bothered me about the idea of rituals was the fact that I was afraid of my own sentiments and emotions. In a way it was a bit like being an angry atheist. I think I was protesting too much, especially given that later in my life rituals would come to mean so much to me. Maybe, too, it was that I felt that so often rituals were meaningless, misused, even dishonest.
It was an interesting paradox for me, though I didn’t get it as an adolescent and even as a young woman. I hated rituals because I thought they were superficial, and yet I was afraid of them because subconsciously they carried so much meaning. Sometimes you hate the thing you’re actually drawn to the most or are repulsed by some of the negative things that remind you of yourself.
These words—revolted, dishonest, hate—were extreme words to use, but looking back, it’s how I felt. Finally, another decade or so on, I realized I hadn’t stopped to consider that rituals often made many people feel good, and I only gradually came to understand that my view of not liking them, and therefore not wanting to participate in them, was self-centered and selfish.
Over time rituals have become hugely important in my life. Ritual has become more and more a part of that deepening interest in religion and faith, a way to express my feelings and my beliefs, a way to connect to others and to the divine. They were cherished opportunities. They give me hope because they hold out the possibility that I can be elevated in some way.
I once did a column for the Washington Post about the idea of the “sacred table,” which for me is really the heart of a home. Family and friends gathering together is a sacred time. When I wrote the book The Party, I dedicated it to my parents “who taught me that successful entertaining is really about generosity of spirit.” My parents were from the South, where hospitality is a religion, making people feel warm and welcome, having them leave one’s home feeling affirmed. I agree. There are few better ways to express your love, respect, affection, and friendship than to gather people around your table.
Henry David Thoreau once said that getting up early can be a sacrament. Not for me. Cocktail hour is my sacrament. Twilight is my favorite time of day. The French have a phrase for it—“Entre le chien et le loup,” between the dog and the wolf—referring to the time of day when the shepherd can’t tell whether that shadow is his dog guarding the sheep or a wolf planning an attack. Bernard DeVoto, a historian and critic, wrote a wonderful little book, The Hour: A Cocktail Manifesto. In it he wrote, “This is the violet hour, the hour of hush and wonder, when the affections glow and valor is reborn.”
Dinner, the table, companionship, sharing, laughter, bonding, connecting—what could be more fulfilling, what could be more fun? It always fascinates me how people think of Washington as a cold, hard cynical place. Certainly Washington is a town where power can be all-consuming, but for exactly that reason, people here tend to be closer than in most communities. Despite the omnipresent public rancor, the real Washington is where people go to the same churches or synagogues or mosques, where their children go to the same schools, where people go to one another’s funerals, christenings, weddings, and graduations.
Rituals become even more important in a place where the stakes—the life and death stakes—are so high. Krista Tippett talks about ritual as a kind of container for trauma. Courtney Martin, an On Being columnist, wrote: “Rituals are so powerful because they provide structure for the full spectrum of our emotional lives: the births and the deaths, the union and the disintegration.”
Gathering people around my table may be my favorite ritual. As Tim Shriver says, it was also the way that Jesus had communion with others. “Jesus was a real party boy,” says Shriver. “Half the scenes, half the parables in the Bible are parties. There are weddings, feasts, celebrations, and they are all parties. . . . The prodigal son ends in a party, the wedding feast of Cain is a party, the parable of the poor man Lazarus is outside of a party. Everybody is having a party all the time and Jesus goes to parties and he’s always drinking and eating with the bad people, the naughty people, the outsiders.”
Having covered parties for the Washington Post and written a book on entertaining, I have often been asked what party in history would I most like to have attended. My immediate answer is the Last Supper. The last thing Jesus did before he died was to have a party with those he loved. They shared bread and wine. It was sacred, holy, a sacrament, a communion. He chose to celebrate his life around a table with his closest companions. I hope that is the last thing I do. I’d like to die the way my mother did, with a glass of champagne in her hand.
* * *
I can rid myself of something by writing on a piece of paper what I want to let go of and throwing it in the fire, or floating it down a stream. I can say prayers and send them off in any direction. I can always light candles to help illuminate all that was being said and heard around a sacred table. Many of the rituals that I participate in—weddings, christenings, funerals, walking the labyrinth, Christmas and Easter, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Shabbat, and Ramadan—all give new meaning to my life. When I see the effect that rituals I create have on people, it gives me a sense of meaning. Nothing gives me more pleasure than surrounding myself with friends, sitting at a table with candles and good food, wine and good conversation. I love the idea that I can bring happiness to others, that I can introduce a bit of the sacred, a slant of light, a measure of joy into someone else’s life. I want my guests to leave my table feeling honored and affirmed. There is magic in that for me.
* * *
Ritual was one of the reasons that a yahrzeit appealed to me. A yahrzeit is part of a prescribed order, a tradition of a community, a ceremonial act in which we could honor Ben. One idea of the yahrzeit is that when the year of mourning is over, “mourners are expected to return to a normal life.” The sixteenth-century code of Jewish law says, “One should not grieve too much for the dead and whoever grieves excessively is really grieving for someone else.” I understand that, but I don’t know what it means to grieve excessively. Nobody can define an individual’s grief. Everyone is different and everyone grieves differently. I knew that at some point I would have to move on to a more normal life, but there were days when I found the idea of that completely unthinkable. There were other days when I thought I was going to make it.
I realized I would not be able to end the mourning period overnight, to divorce myself from the grief, but it also meant that I wouldn’t be the “widow” anymore. Not that that’s a title anyone would aspire to, but there is a sacred quality to it. People are more tender, gentle, and respectful of you. I needed that. It’s almost as if you are wearing your grief in plain sight, no matter how hard you try to hide it, and people are acknowledging it.
When I decided to have a yahrzeit, to consecrate the mausoleum and to commit Ben’s body, it seemed like a wonderful idea, a beautiful ritual. However, it seemed so unlikely, if not impossible, that only a year later I could somehow get on with my life, “move on,” reenter the real world. It seemed unimaginable that somehow my grief would dissolve. “One should not grieve too much . . . ?” I don’t understand that.
I have discovered that you can’t go around grief and that the trajectory of grief is not a straight line. Walking the woods in the cemetery, as I have done m
any times since Ben died, sometimes with Quinn, mostly alone, I have come to see grief reflected in its topography. There are hills and vales, peaks and gulches, smooth paths and rocky ones, sunny spots and dark areas. Sometimes there is silence, sometimes noise. Almost always I am filled with a sense of peace. When I come to the cemetery to mourn, I feel Ben is with me and I will be able to carry on.
I trusted that the ritual of a ceremony would at least open the door to the possibility of a bit of closure, a measure of peace.
Chapter 24
For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
—Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
For many reasons, I was looking forward to Ben’s yahrzeit. The mausoleum was nearly finished. I had invited a hundred close friends and family. The ceremony was sure to be beautiful and meaningful for all of us. There would be a tent in front of the mausoleum, overlooking the woods. A harpist and flutist would play “Afternoon of a Faun” by Debussy. At the stroke of noon when the bells tolled twelve times, Ben’s casket would be rolled from the chapel and moved into his new home. Quinn and I would follow him and say good-bye.
This would be my way of purifying, eclipsing an old state of life, rebooting. I felt more and more the need to get through this year of formal mourning, to come out the other side. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but I did feel there would be a kind of before-and-after difference. I was depleted from this grieving. I had to find a new way to live. I guess I had a fantasy that, magically, at the end of that year, the burden, the heavy weight of sadness, would be lifted and I would find my way back (or forward) to a new normal. How naive. As I would discover, it would not be that easy.
