We are grateful for Tolley M. Jones’ column, “Death commands attention,” (Gazette, Jan. 15). We are mourning the loss of three close family members in the last four months, and have sought ways to hold them “acutely and viscerally” even though we live in a culture that doesn’t stop for grief.
Lee Davis, cousin in Raleigh, North Carolina, Martha Taylor Gibson, Ann’s mother, and Mary Clare Powell, dearest friend from Greenfield, are gone, but we have initiated several rituals for grieving and celebrating them. One is to situate three empty chairs in our backyard, like riderless horses. They were all artists and knew each other, and we imagine them laughing together and sharing stories of what they see in the clouds, the weeds, and each day’s light. Each morning, we read aloud a Mary Clare poem and a few pages from Martha’s travel logs of her overseas trips. Their voices are alive again. Using the medium of clay, Annie is building pieces for our garden in memory of each of them — a heron for Mary Clare, a gecko for Lee, and an abstract sculpture for Martha. Before they died, we signed up to travel to Spain in March with the Smith Glee Club and the Smith Alumnae Chorus to sing Verdi’s Requiem. Whenever our practice bogs down, we remember each of them, and we press on. We expect tears will flow when we sing the Libera me, the final section of this magnificent choral lament. We are also talking with friends about what these individuals meant to us, and we are asking friends who’ve lost someone to tell us about those people. We share photographs, tchotchkes, and stories, delights and sadness. In these ways, and others, we are giving death the attention we feel it deserves, and that attention is helping us adjust to life without the grounding trio of Lee, Martha, and Mary Clare.
Annie Cheatham and Ann Gibson
Conway