The other was seismic. Our holiday had its bright side, certainly, mostly because of a clatter of five children (including the oldest daughter, mother already of three-year-old twin boy and girl, who delighted us by announcing she was with child again) and a larger clatter of grandchildren; but the joy was marred by the death at 55 of my wife's good and valiant brother (and one of my dearest friends), who, after a twelve-year battle with cancer that can only be called heroic, at last passed peacefully on the night of the 21st.
We buried Chip two Saturdays back, after a Catholic wake on Friday evening that. despite frigid weather, saw 600 people file through the funeral home, everyone from all his doctors and nurses to the entire police department he served to the local firefighters, his barber, his auto mechanic, and the man who picked up his trash.
Chip was just a town cop who never sought to impress anyone, but merely to do the little things that helped others with their daily lives. His wonderful young daughter described her father's many acts of kindness and patience to her, for instance: sitting with her in the car after ballet class and playing Barbies with her until a torrential rainstorm let up; lying with her on his chest so as to warm up her winter bed before he put her into it; that sort of gesture. And as she said in her eulogy, "It turns out these little things were actually the big things."
There's surely a salutary lesson there. It is not, of course, only poets and writers who want to extend ego into its widest possible domain. As a culture, we are schooled in thinking we must do extraordinary things or gather great riches or start great movements in order to lead worthy lives. My brother-in-law's example suggests that a far more humble sort of aspiration is what really makes an existence meaningful.
I was asked by my beloved friend's widow to compose a poem for his memorial. I didn't have much time to do that, but I dispatched the job quickly, largely, I suspect, because I had been doing "research" on it for the full three decades and more that I knew and loved Chip. It is not, I believe, a good poem, or at least not one whose quality would be obvious to a reader unacquainted with its honoree. I quote it below as further argument in favor of the self-effacing mode that he so nobly personified.
What It Boils Down To
–for Chip Barone, RIP
It
boils down to this: you will always be young and handsome
And
strong in our hearts– but above all kind, concerned
For
how those around you felt, and this even when
You
fought a war that few can so much as imagine.
We two
were different: I’ve lived my life in the mind,
And
although you were scarcely less bright, you were more the doer.
And
you were my hero, still are. There seem fewer and fewer
Like
you in whose person ethic and deed are combined.
Thought,
no matter how lofty, seems duller than lead,
Without
heart to match, just as faith without works is dead.
You
said, no matter how terribly you were tried,
You
felt a lucky man. I remember you said
As
well– though we all must meet with pain and dread–
The
world’s best things are happening every day.
You
made that clear by the way you smiled on your wife,
On
your children, and with pure joy on your two grandchildren.
That’s
one example. If there’s some grand kingdom called heaven,
As
I believe there may be, it will echo life
In
what you showed to be its most loving hours.
And
those of us who loved you –we are
scores and scores–
Will
take those moments you cherished and make them ours.
What
it boils down to, though I say as much in tears,
Is
that your valor and goodness will light our years.
No comments:
Post a Comment