Williams College - Gulielmensian Yearbook (Williamstown, MA)

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the dimness of our souls away. IVhy do things get so dim and unclear? Going along in the old routine, we get in a kind of acquiescent numbness, we get used to things, we don't see sharply or hear clearly or feel in- tensely. I had a teacher of creative writing once who told our class, You must look at things not only as if you were seeing them for the first time but as if you were seeing them for the last time, as if you were never to see them again and had to take them all in and remem- ber them foreverf, Keep that in mind the next time you look around at these hills. Never, never get used to them! We need to be jolted out of our numbness, often not so gently as my teacher did it. Such men as I,', cried Dmitri Karamazov, need a blow . .. . and he spoke for the whole human race. Sometimes nothing but death will remind us that we are alive. That's a terrible thing to say, but itls true. Love and death . . . What has tortured me these past ten months since Mathilde died are the things I didn't say, the love I didn't express. Why was I so dim, so finicky, so inhibited, so embarrassed? Or were the look in the eyes enough, the squeeze of the hand, the kiss on the brow? I hope to God they were. Heaven knows she was up to anything. She had nerve for both of us. She and Aunt Speedie would have gotten along fine. A week before she died, I came in her room wear- ing a new dark-green shirt under an old greenish tweed jacket. They were made for each other, she said. You could wear them anywhere - even my funeralf, Which I did. The evening of the night she died, she was hilarious, never wittier, and Cas alwaysj a bit of a rascal. She ribbed her doctor about what a lousy skier he was. When a friend asked her why she couldn't eat a bit of the love- ly cheese cake she'd brought her, she replied, Because, my dear, I have a touch of cancerf, It was at the time those three doctors went to examine Nixon in San Clemente to see if he was well enough to testify. In my then-state of compassion, I averred as how it was tough on the poor man to have to go through all that examination again. Our cheese-cake friend, a veteran Nixon-hater, said, Nonsense! Nothing is bad enough for that man,', etc., etc. f'No,', said Mathilde, looking quite saintly on her sickbed, you're wrong. I'm so full of love I can't wish harm on any one. And with a twinkle she added, f'You know, if I should get well, I think I'd be rather nice. f Death is the mother of beauty. D Then another friend said, '6Tillie, when you get well, I want you to make me one of those saintsf, fTil was a potter, I should tell you, and did ceramic sculpture. One of her favorite themes was St. Francis and the birdsj Evaline, she answered, if I get well, I'll make nothing but saints. Six hours later she was dead. Aunt Speedie was one up on her: Mathilde didn't close her own eyes. NVill it shock you A it shouldnit by now - when I tell you that I closed them? It was very simple, very sad and very beautiful. Love and death . . . It's clear to me that the closer she came to death, the more she learned to love and the more she learned about love - and the more she taught us both to love and about love. The departing light clarified the sight -in all of us. She knew where she was going, and she knew what she was learning, and she talked about it. 4'These last three months, she told her doctor a few weeks before the end, have been the best of my life. I wouldn't have missed them for anythingf, To understand more fully this remarkable statement, you must hear the last letter she ever wrote. It was to a friend, Holly Tuttle of New Haven, who lost her hus- band some years ago. The letter says more about love and death than I could in a week of convocation ad- dresses. It's more than just a letter, it's a document. And I read it to you with no embarrassment at all. Re- member: There's something in the Hightf That clari- fies the sight. All things -individual lives, colleges, libraries, college educations -M take on new meaning in the light of their endings - or when they end for you, as they must. Love them while you can, and never, never be embarrassed. And now here's the letter, and I'm done: Dear' Holly: E You sent me such a good letter - I do want to answer. The problem of dealing with this fellow Death has been interesting. fFunny, what would womanls lib say to my making Death masculine? Surely I can't think of myself being swept up by a lady.J In the first place, when I saw him come striding up to my house - garbed in all his strange garments that we humans have wished on him - I wasnlt in the least spooked. I opened the door and we had a nice little chat. Subsequent chats have been reas- suring, and I know hels my good friend. I'm sure you have a nodding acquaintance with him so you have the same feelings. Then there's LOVE. I feel I'd never have known its endless horizons had I lived out my full span. Somehow in a smooth life we take each other for granted, and now, even with someone like Richard, new little vistas open up - and with casual acquaintances, whole worlds. My plumber, Tommy Citerella, stopped in to see me after he'd attended to our various drips and leaks. He sat down and looked out at the view I have from my bed: a valley, a mill house, a waterfall, a lake - all hung in the most gorgeous color. Missus, he said, you have to have faith. You have to pray. God's never failed me. Hels saved me three times. Tommy,l' I said, 'AI don't know where to aim my prayers. God is such a mystery. 'fMissus, he said, t'don't worry. I'll take over all the praying. And he took my two hands and leaned down and kissed me on the brow. So now - what do I have to worry about. Love, Til 'P Death is the mother of beauty . . . a sense of the ending. Do you see what I mean?

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