The Silken Tent
      My Letter to the World
      December 2000
      December 29, 2000
      Friday


      At the end of the funeral service I attended yesterday, the deceased's oldest daughter gave a lively and affectionate eulogy for her father, during which she listed some of the words of wisdom he was famous for. "Light where light is needed!" he would say, turning off lights in unoccupied rooms but turning up the lamp beside the chair where she was reading. It brought to mind one of my own father's sayings, something I have tried to live by: "Be proactive, not reactive."

      Perhaps it's this low grade depression I'm carrying around, or anxiety about my surgery, or just a generalized sense of disconnection, but lately, especially in the last six months, I've felt a more and more urgent need to make connections, to strengthen ties with people I see all the time as well as people I've fallen out of touch with. To be reactive would to be to whine and sigh about it, to make excuses about why the situation exists and why it can't be remedied. Today I did something proactive.

      We'll call her Delia. We met more than forty years ago as youngsters in the Junior Wednesday Club, an organization devoted to musical performance. She was a vocalist and pianist, I was a violinist.

      Delia was different from other kids, born older, it seemed. She was the only child of older parents (older even than mine) who were very conservative and very cultured. When we were in eighth grade I talked about my devotion to the Fabulous Fabian, and she asked me who that was. (This would be like my 15-year-old not knowing who Britney Spears is.)

      In high school, Delia was fiercely devoted to academic achievement. She was brilliant, and hard working. She was what we would now call a "geek." I was working very hard to shed my "geekiness," not unlike Lindsay in the late lamented "Freaks and Geeks." I worked hard at being what I thought was "normal," hiding my academic prowess, sometimes even deliberately failing to achieve. But Delia and I remained friends, and I often defended her to those who made fun of her sensible shoes, her book bag (I'm not sure backpacks had even been invented then!), her obsessions over two points on a Spanish test.

      Delia earned a full ride to a well-known women's college in New England. After that she got full rides for advanced degrees at even better known universities. She was a White House intern before that became a joke. After graduation she worked in research at her university for a few years. When her father died about 25 years ago, she left that city to move back home with her mother. To my knowledge she has not worked since.

      Meanwhile I was relentlessly busy building my "normal" life. I got married (twice), had a child, bought a house in the suburbs, retired from a thirty-year career (which kept me in touch with youth culture so that I'd know who Britney Spears was even if I didn't have a teenager in residence, which teenager, you will note, thinks B.S. is B.S.). I attended Delia's father's funeral in 1973, and that's the last I saw of her until today.

      She'd put herself in our school's all-class alumni directory, even though she's never attended a class reunion. (I never miss one.) Somebody who does that wants to be contacted, I figured. (One of our classmates is listed as "whereabouts unknown," even though he publishes a column in the city newspaper every week.) Last year I sent her a Feast of Stephen letter. This year I invited her to the party.

      She didn't come, in part because she didn't open the invitation until a week after the date. (This is not uncommon. The invitation comes in a #10 envelope and looks like a business letter or, worse, the dreaded holiday form letter. This is the first year I didn't put a sticker shouting INVITATION! on it. Next year I'm folding it like a greeting card.) But she wrote to me, telling me of her 94-year-old mother's increasing health problems. "If you'd like to see her again, do call..."

      Read between the lines, I thought. I'd like to see you again. If you'd like to see Mother again, do it now.

      And so today I did. I took Lynn with me, and we had a delightful afternoon, despite my increasing discomfort (unto pain) with my leg. As she'd mentioned in her note, Delia and her mother had a dazzling Christmas tree -- authentic Scotch pine with not one single ornament acquired after about 1960, and real tinsel (which we in the DeAngelis house are not allowed to fling at our artificial tree, per Ron's insistence, lest the stuff never come out).

      We talked about old times and old friends, what we've been doing recently, what our plans for the future are. Delia's mother, who was having a very good day, shared memories of my parents. Lynn enjoyed herself as well. We left with promises to do this again soon.

      I pray those promises not be empty. It's up to me to follow through.

      (Previous -- Next)
      Letters 2001
      Archive of Letters 2000
      Archive of Letters 1999
       Back to the Index Page

      This journal updates irregularly.
      To learn when new pieces are added, join the Notify List.

       The contents of this page are © 2000 by
      Margaret DeAngelis.

      Love it? Hate it? Just want to say hi? Click on my name above.