Oh, William! Oh, Joe!
A friend who knows me oh-so-well dropped by a couple of weeks ago to deliver a book she believed I would like.
She was right.
If you read "Lucy Barton," this book explains a lot of mysteries left over from that book. If you didn't read Lucy, no worries. This book will stand alone just fine.
It was one of those books where the reader is torn between wanting to find out what happens vs. wanting the book not to end.
So I'm writing this post as a kind of memorandum to self; there were lines from the book that spoke to me in poignant ways. I don't want to lose them.
“Once every so often — at the very most — I think someone actually chooses something. Otherwise, we’re following something — we don’t even know what it is but we follow it.”
Oh, I do agree with this! Some people choose more than other people do. Many people let life happen to them. Choosing is agonizing for some of us.
“People are lonely, is my point here. Many people can’t say to those they know well what it is they feel they might want to say.”
This writer is so wise, so insightful. When I was a hospital chaplain, often people found it easier to say things to me — a total stranger — than to say them to their close people.
“Because what choice did he have—what choice do most of us have—except to be okay?”
“What is it that William knew about me and that I knew about him that caused us to get married?”
I learned in a family systems class that we tend to marry people who reflect traits — bad as well as good — that were inherent in people who brought us up. Not limited to parents, but other adults, too. I think about this a lot. I spy traits from time to time. And I wonder what traits he sees.
William was The Love Of Her Life, even though she left their marriage. Those of us who find the love of our lives and spend our lives with them are blessed.
And, finally:
[William] said, “There’s a life cycle to everything. Including a man’s work.”
This connects with this peculiar and intense sadness I’ve felt recently as I watch Joe dismantle his office. He and I met when we were eighteen, just out of high school and he was embarking on an associate's degree in architecture that would prepare him for work as a draftsman (now called a drafter), an estimator, a planner, an inspector. He went on to complete that degree and then to earn a bachelor's and a master's in the same field. He's won awards for projects, he's re-imagined and made happen a huge renovation at our church, he's designed brilliant homes for many people and made every home we've ever owned (four so far, and I think I'm done counting) uniquely ours. He's turned out to be a spectacular husband (see "Love of One's Life" above), an excellent father, and an amused and amusing grandfather. But architecture and planning is at his core. And now, after not quite sixty years, he is retiring. He is shredding and burning papers of all kinds: plans, documents, drawings, proposals. He is dismantling drawing tables, moving furniture, planning for the disposal of equipment. This has been strangely unsettling to me, despite my knowing he has abundant plans to do other things in retirement, things he's put off too long. I told him, "It's as though you've found out you have six weeks to live and you don't want to leave me with a mess, but you don't want to tell me, either." He assures me I'm mistaken.
I think I need to believe what he says. And also what William says: "There's a life cycle to everything. Including a man's work."
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