Im always aware of the consequences, albeit invisible ones, of being too personal online, or even in person. My mom passed away during the few times I went back to NYC. I was in my studio alone, on a Thursday. My sister was with my mom. It was just the two of us taking care of her, and we made sure she was never alone; unless she was sleeping at night. That is something I am very proud of. I had to go back to NYC to work, and I was very tired. Theres the idea that in the Jewish faith that people are buried immediately, but thats not necessarily true. They recognize that people need to travel, etc., but not in our case, so it was more immediate. Just 4 days later. Theres so many things I want to tell you all about the last 5 months, because they were extraordinary. It was dark and beautiful. Each day was packed, and things changed suddenly. It wasnt calm, it was full of lightning. I hate the word battle, but we battled for her, even if we knew it was for nothing; even if we told ourselves 1,000 lies. We wanted to show her how much we loved her; how we would fight for her comfort. I was like an animal, absolutely ashamed of my ferociousness, but willing to risk animosity to show her that my love was so unbelievably strong. The funeral was on Monday and I wanted to find something to read that was fitting. I knew I couldnt speak at her funeral because it was too private, so my sister did. And anything she said would be beautiful and perfect and fitting. And I would keep what we had for another time. To make this short, I thought Id share something I found at the last moment. Something my mother expressed that she wanted for her legacy. We were never a family that spoke about death. We were never religious. We never spoke of God or an afterlife. I do have to tell you one thing, that is so dark and so beautiful. You can absolutely stop reading now, but soon after my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she told me she had one wish. She wanted a black marble asymmetrical tombstone. I wanted to throw-up, and I am sure I yelled at her to please not think about things like that, only 6 months ago. In hindsight that request encompasses every single thing I admired about her. She believed, on the most superficial level, it was better to look good than feel good, but on the most supreme level, design was king. And she marveled in it. A true lover of art. She filled my sister and I with creativity, and I am happy she lived long enough to see that we have followed in her footsteps. The night before her funeral I Googled every poem I could remember and nothing seemed to fit. And it would be so awful to settle for something ok. And then I remembered, as elementary as it may be, Rilkes Letters To A Young Poet and found the following quote, and just thought, how perfect: Things arent all so tangible and sayable as people would usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered, and more unsayable than all other things are works of art, those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 01:42:42 +0000
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