more on Claire
My days are divided between thinking too much of Claire and not thinking of her at all--which is unusual, as this is our birthday month. I've written some stuff for a grief class I'm attending. I brushed aside the question and answer format and wrote a too-long essay. Here it is:
More On Claire, March 2012
Claire was serious, intense, uncompromising, determined. Her childlessness allowed her to be counter-culture to the point of impracticality. Our older sister called her “annoying.” Yes, at times she was. She wanted everyone to understand nonviolence, justice, and frugality with the same passion as she did. At one season, this made even ordinary conversation impossible. Cheerios? Big business. Microwave? Bad for the environment. And the government? Especially wrong on all fronts. Claire had found her voice, and she wanted to be sure you heard her.
She depended on me to be her intimate friend. But I could not be fully transparent with her, or I’d hurt her feelings. When we were at the lake in 2010, I wanted to invite a couple to dinner. How devastated she was, understanding that I wanted some company besides just her. It wasn’t like the old days when we could be on the same page about everything. Much as I had come to respect her resilience and her comfort with solitude, I just couldn’t be the same.
I appreciated her more and more in her last days, though. There was a connection between our hearts that withstood all the superficial differences. She approached death with the same determination that she approached life. She never complained. When I took her hand to comfort and connect with her, she became the one patting and soothing me. What joy, when I adjusted the covers, or set up her ice chips, or chose music, and she would say, “perfect.” What grief when she couldn’t communicate in the final two days.
What was most special about Clairzy was the way she noticed beauty. Sunsets, wildflowers, the sounds and smells of a woods...
What bothered me most was her impracticality, and how she found injustice in benign situations. She persisted in blaming "patriarchy" for a multitude of sins. I won't agree.
But there is no substitute for Clairzy. I loved her regardless. I’m still stunned to realize she’s not here anymore. I regret sighing about our 60th birthday. She won't see it. We at first thought she had 3 months, then 3 weeks, then just 2 weeks from the time she started Hospice care. I miss her. I hope her eternal life is, as she would simply assess, “perfect.”
More On Claire, March 2012
Claire was serious, intense, uncompromising, determined. Her childlessness allowed her to be counter-culture to the point of impracticality. Our older sister called her “annoying.” Yes, at times she was. She wanted everyone to understand nonviolence, justice, and frugality with the same passion as she did. At one season, this made even ordinary conversation impossible. Cheerios? Big business. Microwave? Bad for the environment. And the government? Especially wrong on all fronts. Claire had found her voice, and she wanted to be sure you heard her.
She depended on me to be her intimate friend. But I could not be fully transparent with her, or I’d hurt her feelings. When we were at the lake in 2010, I wanted to invite a couple to dinner. How devastated she was, understanding that I wanted some company besides just her. It wasn’t like the old days when we could be on the same page about everything. Much as I had come to respect her resilience and her comfort with solitude, I just couldn’t be the same.
I appreciated her more and more in her last days, though. There was a connection between our hearts that withstood all the superficial differences. She approached death with the same determination that she approached life. She never complained. When I took her hand to comfort and connect with her, she became the one patting and soothing me. What joy, when I adjusted the covers, or set up her ice chips, or chose music, and she would say, “perfect.” What grief when she couldn’t communicate in the final two days.
What was most special about Clairzy was the way she noticed beauty. Sunsets, wildflowers, the sounds and smells of a woods...
What bothered me most was her impracticality, and how she found injustice in benign situations. She persisted in blaming "patriarchy" for a multitude of sins. I won't agree.
But there is no substitute for Clairzy. I loved her regardless. I’m still stunned to realize she’s not here anymore. I regret sighing about our 60th birthday. She won't see it. We at first thought she had 3 months, then 3 weeks, then just 2 weeks from the time she started Hospice care. I miss her. I hope her eternal life is, as she would simply assess, “perfect.”
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