If ever I got a job writing sympathy cards, I’d probably be fired on the spot.
Truth is, I think that the fewer pre-printed words, the better. My mother eschewed all store-bought sympathy cards because she found them tacky. She sent all her condolences on plain, ivory-colored Crane note cards, writing personal notes to comfort the bereaved.
When I lost my husband, Fred, I savored the hand-written messages people wrote me. But the store-bought greetings were another story.
At first, words about cherishing memories of my beloved seemed innocuous. Before long, though, they began to grate on my nerves.
No way did I want to live on my memories! I couldn’t think of anything more depressing than living in the past.
Don’t get me wrong. I adored my brilliant, energetic Renaissance man of a husband. He was the most alive person I’d ever met. But I’ve always been oriented toward the future.
Rocker Warren Zevon helped me find ways to move forward. Faced with an incurable form of lung cancer in 2003, he gathered a talented group of fellow musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, to make his final album, “The Wind.”
“Keep Me in Your Heart” is one of those unforgettable songs that sounds like a pure spirit unfettered by all the nonessentials of life. Usually, slow songs drag me down, but not this one. The line about being tied to you like the buttons on your blouse gets me every time.
Fred and I adored Warren Zevon’s sharp wit and vivid imagination. He was the Jack Keroac of singer-songwriters, a storyteller whose flame shone brighter than most.
Before Fred got sick, he worked from home and, in between stories, sometimes surfed the web. One day, he called down to me, “You’ve got to see this!”
I rushed upstairs and peered over Fred’s shoulder. He called up a music video of Bruce Springsteen and Warren Zevon playing, “Disorder in the House.”
Fred’s smile spread all the way to the West Coast. “They’re having so much fun!” he said.
I saw it, too: The look of unadulterated joy on the faces of both Zevon and Springsteen.
A few years later, Fred was diagnosed frontotemporal dementia. Early in the disease, an aide shocked us by asking Fred if he wanted to color. How could someone ask such a question of a grown man whose intellect rocketed into the stratosphere?
However, as the disease progressed, coloring became one of our go-to activities, and I stumbled on a book of mandalas. Something about the symmetry of these geometric designs tickled my fancy.
Research geek that I am, I googled “mandalas” and discovered that they’re an art form extolled by Buddhists and Hindus. Fred studied Eastern religions in college and steeped himself in Buddhist thought.
Aha! Maybe, if ever I designed my own line of sympathy cards, I could put beautiful mandalas on the cover. Perhaps, in the middle of the picture, I could use a quote inspired by “Keep Me in Your Heart” by Warren Zevon. Shortened a bit and with a collective pronoun for expansiveness it would become “In our hearts.”
Perhaps Buddhism could offer me a way to carry Fred’s spirit into the future. Our daughter Amanda read a Buddhist prayer to him at the end of his life that appeared to calm his breathing. Fred also seemed to respond to me talking about always keeping him in mind with anything to do with the kids.
So I did a little research on Buddhist sympathy cards and discovered that sentiments like being reunited with a loved one in heaven aren’t in keeping with an Eastern belief in the endless cycle of life and death. Good deeds, on the other hand, live on. Because Fred put so much positive karma into the world, I was delighted to find a quote about how neither fire, nor wind, birth, nor death could erase our good deeds.
Maybe, if ever I make my own line of sympathy cards, I could tweak a quote about good deeds for the inside. I’d pair my new product with a line of greeting cards for everyday life with another piece of inspiration form Warren Zevon.
In Zevon’s final appearance on the Letterman Show, Dave asked him if his situation had given him any new insights.
“Enjoy every sandwich,” Zevon replied.
This memorable line became the title of a Warren Zevon tribute album. Enjoy every sandwich. Such simple yet profound advice. Tonight, I’m making myself a smoked turkey wrap with pesto in Fred’s honor.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence. She writes a monthly column for the Gazette, Only Human, that runs on the second Friday of the month. You. can reach her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail.com.