coming out of my shell

coming out of my shell

Monday, December 12, 2022

Reflecting on Nancy, 2 years after her death

A million years ago I worked with Nancy. Old enough to be my mother, I was her supervisor. She was the first person I ever supervised. 

A gently bred Virginian, she followed her academic husband up north. She was a pianist, a classical music aficionado, a music teacher. Like many women of her generation, she eschewed career goals to be a stay at home mother. 

When her husband left for another woman, he assumed Nancy wouldn't be able to keep the large family home or care for their 5 children. He offered to take them instead, him and his new wife. Well, that did it! Nancy found a job. She worked to keep her children and the family home. She took in borders to supplement her income. She kept the kids and that big, aging, elegant house. When she related this story to me, years after the fact, her eyes were on fire.

When she died, I sent sympathy cards to each of her children. I didn't hear back from her only son. On the 2nd anniversary of her death, he replied. He'd refused to open the card out of deep grief, waiting until he was emotionally prepared to read it. Two years he waited! 

This is what I sent back to him:

Your mother was a wonder to me. Her passion for music, her children, and THAT HOUSE was remarkable. She was like that at work, too. She didn't just work with someone, she got to know them. She paid attention. She drew conclusions. She cared, often deeply. The faculty, staff, and students loved her.  

She could be stubborn, of course. I'll never forget how I bought her a new computer and she let it sit for a year until I worked up the courage to force her to learn how to use it. Yes, you get that from her.  

She would have understood and been a bit in awe of your decision to postpone reading that sympathy card/note for two years. A love, a loss, a pain so deep - well, she knew all that only too well. I'm actually consulting a thesaurus for the right word to use to describe her passion for the things and people she loved. It's a struggle to come up with the right word. Maybe intensity with a splash of rage? At her best, she was stunning.  

She surrounded her desk with postcards she received
from students and faculty over the years.

 

23 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Good. I'm kinda overflowing with it right now.

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  2. What a lovely photo of Nancy, knowing her back story, and seeing that she came to be appreciated by so many who came in contact with her. Loved and grieved so deeply by her only son who was only able to write to you now. Thank you for this.

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  3. I like the way her husband assumed Nancy wouldn't be able to keep the large family home or care for their 5 children, and she was so incensed she was determined to prove him wrong. And I like the way she let the computer sit for a year until she was forced to use it! Precious memories of old friends....

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  4. She sounds like an incredible woman. I love those postcards of hers, beautiful.

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  5. That is such a touching and beautiful story. I love that her son waited two years to read the sympathy card. Such a beautiful act of sorrow, healing, and love.

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    Replies
    1. I was thrilled to learn he waited 2 years. Nancy would have loved it.

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  6. I've known my share of women like this, but never one whose son waited through two years of grieving to respond. Thank you.

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  7. What a lovely tribute to Nancy! You can tell by your photo that she touched many, many lives! Thanks for sharing her story.

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  8. We get to interact with the most amazing people on this planet. I know they say it is our struggles who make us who we are. She was tested and found herself not just worthy but so much more. I wonder what she felt was left undone (if anything at all).

    Well done Nancy. Well loved, well lived.

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    1. I think she probably regretted not getting her Christmas cards out the previous year.

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    2. That was a recurring theme in her life - always late with the Christmas cards.

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  9. What a nice remembrance. I love all her postcards!

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  10. During my formal education, up to age 15, I held teachers in contempt. As supremely irrelevant. If I was eventually to become educated (a possibility that often seemed in the balance) I imagined that I would be in control of the process. That I would choose my own teachers and would only have myself to blame if the skill I was searching for didn't arrive. And this is the way it has worked. I had about five private French teachers over 35 years and although I never achieved the fluency I might have hoped for I "get along" under most circumstances including journalistic work in France. Various ski instructors, the best almost all Swiss, polished my parallelism. And those who know me will be familiar with V and the progress she has wrought in my singing the classical repertoire (now agonisingly at risk following the most recent cancer op).

    Understand I am not recommending this method to anyone. For those who were lucky enough to find an effective and sympathetic teacher in the early days (as with Nancy above), I say "Good luck." I didn't and I am perfectly willing to admit it was my fault as much as theirs.

    However I must also admit an exception to these wilful decisions on my part. During National Service with the RAF I was required to become competent in repairing various forms of radio equipment, an educational process that lasted eight months, starting with the structure of the atom and quite a lot mathematics thrown in. I doubted this would be a success but it was and it transformed my professional life (in journalism) thereafter.

    But here's the irony. Those who taught me electronics in the RAF were conscripts like me, forced to give up two years of their life at the government's behest. They took the same eight-month course I took, showed good proficiency, were asked if they fancied teaching and were promoted to corporal (ie, more pay) if they agreed. Yet this randomly chosen faculty achieved the impossible: educating me in a difficult subject which, I thought, was beyond me. Successful teachers unchosen by me. There are always exceptions.

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    Replies
    1. The exceptions are always welcome.

      I'm concerned your cancer op is putting your singing at risk.

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    2. To paraphrase Dido's Lament (which I can't sing anyway; it's for sopranos):

      What is life without (it)?
      What is death if (it) is gone?

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  11. This is Molly, not anonymous, still wrestling with that! That woman sounds amazing. Her son waiting for two years to open your card brought tears to my eyes. I'm sure he will treasure That letter you wrote to him brought her alive for me. I'm sure he'll treasure it. So hard to lose someone you love. One day they're there, next not. Hard to get over.

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So, whadayathink?