Death and Christmas

I went to pay my respects at my Uncle's Brother's wake (and tomorrow, the funeral). While I didn't really know the deceased, I know and respect his brother very much. If Don was half the man that Richard is, then the world is slightly less bright tonight.

At the wake, there was a brief service where the priest talked about death as a stage in life. Wakes are a contemplative time, and I generally get an ache in the part of my heart that my Dad occupied. But, with Christmas around the corner, and my engagement recently called off, I found myself in a dark way. The priest talked about our lives as stories, which as a literary critic I found this to be an interesting metaphor. Don's story was over, or at least the Earthly volume; this, in turn, give us time to think about where our stories are taking us.

In the movie Stranger than Fiction, Will Farrell's character, Harold Krick, finds himself to be the main character in a novel that someone is writing. He hears voices in his head the narrate the moments of his life. In order to understand these voices and make some sense of his life, he approaches a professor of literature, played by the awesome Dustin Hoffman, who explains the basic plots of all stories: if it ends in a wedding, it's a comedy; if it ends with a death, it's a tragedy. At one point, Harold is putting the moments of his life in two piles: moments of tragedy and moments of comedy. At one particularly low point, he turns to the female character he is pursuing (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and says, "This may sound like jibberish to you, but I think I'm in a tragedy."

Ironically, I was watching this movie, at that particularly section, when Erika called to break up with me. There is a kinship between Harold and I: we both feel that we are part of a story that we have no control over. Harold eventually realizes that he plays a part in a larger narrative, and that author, in killing him, gives his life (and his story) meaning. In the end, the narrator rewrote the story to a less meaningful version, giving Harold the control over his life that he wanted (and his chance with Maggie Gyllenhaal).

Hoffman and the author have a conversation at the end, discussing the ending of Harold's story. Hoffman is slightly disappointed that Harold lives, claiming the original was one of the most important pieces of fiction in the canon written to that point. The version where he doesn't die was understandable, but not all that great. So, the choice the narrator had was between an important and interesting ending, or a happy ending.

People spoke at the wake, retelling stories of Don's life, and I was really moved by how he was remembered. Again, I only knew his brother Richard, who has impacted my life in meaningful ways, so really my experiences with Don are limited to these vicarious retellings, filtered through my relationship with Richard. These stories were reductive, of course, glossing over the horrible times. But that's not really important. There were enough genuinely warm moments that the two eulogies were extremely touching, particularly from Don's daughter. She told a story about a humble, spiritual man who clearly loved his family, and lived his life as if it were a celebration of the happy moments of every day.

She ended her eulogy with a quote from e e cummings' "I Carry Your Heart With Me":

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

This poem is immense, and paints a picture of the selflessness that is necessary for a functioning relationship. And this is really the heart of the matter: I want someone to think of this poem when they think of me. I want to find someone with whom I can spend my life, and carry her heart in mine.

Sorry that this is so sad-sacky. Christmas is a particularly cuddly time of year, and my puppy Leo, while quite cuddly, is not quite adequate.