Ides of March

It was a breezy, cool-ish June afternoon in 2012, with a bonfire crackling in the side yard and smoke blowing every which way. I arrived at June and Dean’s for the memorial gathering and spotted Janice and her brother Wesley and lovely Linda, and the older woman Aila who used to volunteer to work on the archives donated from Alf the town historian, when we all worked together at the Guild.

June’s small fluffy dog Snickers, acquired not too long ago from the spca, romped around the woodsy yard, with obvious grand pride in his newly acquired digs. Dean went inside and came back out with a tribute tray of Dana's favorite beverages: a pitcher of Margaritas, and a bottle of Prosecco...we chose our favorites.  We toasted solemnly and clinked glasses.  Lovely Linda told of the last time she and I and Dana had gone to the Mexican restaurant for dinner and imbibed Margaritas, and upon leaving, I’d had to help both of them to the small red car, because of their respective dizziness and balance issues.  She made it sound festive and funny and there were a few chuckles around the fire.

June mentioned she'd put some sacrificial type offerings in the fire earlier (I hadn’t thought of that).  Then Janice reached for her purse and came out with a tiny Swiss flag on a toothpick, along with a picture of she and Dana, at the Matterhorn. She tossed both into the fire, not saying anything else about it.  She had traveled with Dana to Switzerland two years before, when Dana was still hiking and making her annual trek to Zermatt, a pilgrimage she’d continued for at least twenty years after her husband Malcolm died many years before. 

Other friends arrived: Rowena and Tom, Lawrence, Darlene, and an unknown gent with dark glasses, though it seemed way too late in the day for dark glasses and we were in the woods, so to speak.  And Ardith. Although it was cool enough for us all to don gloves and stand with arms folded over our collective chests, Ardith somehow was comfortable with no jacket at all, and her black curly wet hair – ah, youth. 

We stood (or alternately kept moving in circles) around the bonfire with our drinks, trying to avoid ingesting the smoke, and seeming to pair off a bit to tell “Dana” stories.  I think the talk around the fire was a bit fractured. I talked with Rowena, Tom talked with Dean, Ardith and Aila sat and talked, a paradim pairing of the youngest and the oldest present; June gave Wesley a tour of her garden,  Lawrence talked with….? Was it my imagination or were there some women studiously not talking with each other?  (This is only in retrospect).

Rowena shared with me what had gone on with Dana on the last day.  She had gone to see her and the doctor was there and gave her the report (she’d been put on a list of approved people to talk with) Dana had a perforated bowel; Rowena says casually, in that frank, intense way she has, well, she did have diverticulitis, but it also could have been the chemo, and the doctor told Dana he could perform the necessary surgery, or he could “make her comfortable.”  It was her choice.  Dana said “no surgery”, knowing what the surgery involved and that it would change nothing about her cancer, but give her additional complications.  Rowena said Dana was very clear about her choice.  After that, things went pretty quickly.  Rowena had other things to say, trite stuff, old stuff, about the Guild and Dana’s choices, and her not agreeing, but I didn’t really listen, and sort of drifted away, looking for another conversation.

We all went inside to eat and folks clustered in twos and threes in the warm, cluttered rooms, sharing their individual stories about Dana.  Then, Darlene called everyone’s attention, and she read much of the obituary that had appeared in the Woodstock Times about Dana. Lawrence said nothing, but I knew she had written the piece. Dana’s close friends Suzannah, Shirley, and Barbara were not there, and I wondered why not. I felt that it was particularly hard for Linda and of course Ardith, both of whom  were very constant and present supporters for Dana in the past year, Linda going with her to her chemo treatments, Ardith taking care of Dana’s cherished cats, with those Greek names I never could remember.  

I felt when I came home, that so much was unsaid, but maybe that is just the nature of it all.  Everyone has much to say, but it is hard and bittersweet to say it, or maybe we just want to keep the memories to ourselves. We knew different parts of Dana. That's how it is with people. She had such a broad spectrum of friends, and over a goodly period of time. It seemed a bit ironic, for she was not an overtly expressive or emotional person, but yet one knew where her devotions lay. She was a loyal friend, a very loyal friend, but sometimes one did not know why. Even in her last weeks alive, there was no real connecting in a very personal way, for me, anyway.  She seemed unable to ever get very personal except if there were too many vodkas or Margaritas. 

When June and Janice and Arlene and I saw her last on her birthday, the Ides of March, we had gathered at the Thompson House, a hospice.  We popped the champagne, we had bowls of M&M’s, her favorites, and we sang Happy Birthday.  Darlene told a great story from the old days  when she’d worked with Dana at the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, which involved a famous scheduled guest conductor, a missing limo and a pair of white gloves, and Dana added a few points that she felt Arlene missed, but mostly she just smiled and nodded at the remembrance, the telling of the story.  Dana loved a good story.  She lay back in her bed, propped against the wall, wearing her Cubs hat, with the word Cubs spelled out in hieroglyphics. The Cubs, Egyptian history, Switzerland, and her little red car with the license plate ALPS, those were Dana's favorite things. Happy Birthday Dana!