BY JAN HAAG
DOUR
(12-12-97)
John
was
a dour
man,
mostly unsmiling,
pleasant enough, but without
warmth;
willing to lecture,
but seldom able to converse;
instructive,
but mostly without laughter
-- dour.
It's a
good word and seldom used.
He meant well and was,
for the most
part, kind and considerate.
As he lay dying of leukemia,
Julia asked
John
what he would like for his death
--before his death, really
--
and he said:
"Friends."
Now John was always pretty much
alone,
seemingly content with his studies
and his search,
with writing
books and teaching religion --
Comparative
Religion.
So "Friends," was his last request.
It was his last wish
to come out of his study,
to join the crowd,
to have people
to know and to chat with,
people to laugh with and cry with,
and
Julia could supply that,
O, yes, Devayani,
Julia was good at
"Friends."
You were a continent away,
so you didn't get invited to
be one of the friends
for the eight months of visiting and
partying,
watching John blossom into gregariousness,
smiles and
laughter.
Only in your mind's eye,
now, two years later,
from
Julia's description,
can you see John's remote face begin to open --
like the statue in the National Museum of Japan
whose face is
dividing down the center
revealing the face beneath
of divine
grace, beatitude -- friendly, in love
with the sky and the earth, or in
this case,
with people.
John's divinity began to
shine through
on the people,
drawing them out of their homes,
out of their
families and fears,
out of their lives to dance at his death,
to
fulfill his request -- Julia's request, really, for
she arranged
the parties and the meetings,
in the hospital, and in the garden
at
their blue house in Suwanee,
and occasionally for coffee, out
at a
restaurant,
at church.
She accepted, or rejected
the dozens of
invitations to others' houses
for others' suppers,
gauging his
strength, pacing his down hill path.
Through his work,
as a
professor at Emory,
John had met the Dalai Lama, had invited
him to
speak at the University.
Julia heard His Holiness was to be nearby
during a few days of the eight months
it was taking John to die.
So
Julia asked him,
the Dalai Lama,
to come by -- to spend a little
while,
as a friend, with John,
and the Dalai Lama, of course, did.
He won the Nobel Prize for Peace,
and he deserved it.
Arriving in his limousine
with his guards and entourage at the
hospital --
isn't it odd how, in this world,
we wouldn't dream of
letting a holy man go about
in solitary peace --
to visit another
human being.
And, O Devayani,
you asked, "What did he say?
What did they talk about?"
Julia laughed, "O, you know, 'How are
you?'
'How are you feeling?'
And bits of philosophy about
Buddhism,"
-- which John knew well, for he had spent a
lifetime
in his study studying the Buddhists and the Hindus,
the
Christians and the Moslems,
quietly, away from the crowd, thinking,
no doubt, as you do, Devayani,
about God:
Is He? She?
Was
He? She? Why?
Who are we?
Where did we come from?
Where are we
going?
What are beliefs?
Where did they come from?
Do you
believe?
Questioning the Eight Noble Truths,
and the Ten
Commandments.
Questioning La illaha illa 'llah
There is
no God but God.
Looking into Zen and Meditation,
the Dharma
and the Tao,
contemplating the life of Sufi
and Sadhu, saint
and sinner,
Dervish and Aesetic,
Confuscianism and the New
Age.
He visited India several times.
And you wonder, O Devayani,
did he talk about these
things with the Dalai Lama,
and even
before you ask the question,
you know the answer:
No.
By the time
a dour man grows old enough
and certain enough of his imminent death,
you are quite certain he
doesn't need to "compare" religions any
more.
He wants "Friends" --
the motion, emotion, swirl, action,
color of life,
just to see it, just to hear it.
The wondering is
done,
contemplation
has had its time and its place,
kept him
separate and satisifed,
dour and unresponsive
-- only a little
responsive --
to the breaking of bread and the making of love,
to
the high joys of laughter
heard across the lawn
and close up.
O Devayani, he talked,
you are sure,
by then,
more than he
ever had
about feeling fit and feeling bad,
about having a good
conversation
with this one
and a difficult conversation with that
one --
mostly to Julia.
He blossomed, in his desire for
friends,
into a friend.
Perhaps into The Friend that Rumi speaks
of,
the companion to be with all the days of your life,
or just
the last half circle.
In eight months, 248 days,
a lifetime of
friendship poured into his life,
arranged by Julia, gladly.
For as
far as friendship was concerned,
he had never asked for much.
She
called and cooked, and created all the intimacy
of a lifetime of human
relationships,
of communities and caring.
She did what she could
and it was enough.
Lukemia is a slow death, but not a bad one,
weakening, slipping away day by day --
eight months and eight days
from diagnosis to death, budding,
like a new plant, a spring plant,
into the knowledge
of human happiness, the human happiness
of
puttering through life,
without study, without being shut in an
office,
without being closed in and afraid,
without being too
shy to ask for
the hand of a friend,
the smile of compassion,
the
touch of love from almost perfect strangers
who became friends over
night
because he asked them to,
or Julia did. "Ask and ye shall be
given."
O Devayani, you know it is as simple as that.
Almost. The
courage is in the asking.
John asked, and he was given.
Julia
asked, and all were giving.
O Devayani, you have a vision of their big
blue
house, and the big wild garden easing down to the
woods,
turnips and tulips and lilacs, in eight months you can
see it
all. Great tables of foodstuffs
and favors, desserts and
drinkables,
a canopy under the sun. John and Julia
celebrating what
has been and what will be
.
Going down to the river --" Way Down
Upon the Swannee
River." It seems as mythological as the song,
old
fashioned and hilarious,
sentimental and sacrificial.
With Julia
lying down at night next
to the cooling body of her husband,
next
to the cooling heart of love,
warming for one last
time to love the
corporeal form
-- loving the eyes and the hair,
the mouths and the
laughter of friends,
even the hands of enemies,
parading past in
the gigantic extravaganza of life.
Life is no more than the blood and
guts of a body,
hot sprung from the womb of creation
in the ooze
and slime of birth.
It falls away in the sleep of breathing,
less
and less,
less and less,
and less.
"Do you miss him?" O
Devayani, you asked of Julia,
for you knew of their rocky course
through the ages of marriage and children
and almost divorce,
and the troubles, the troubles, the troubles.
But you didn't have
to ask, for already,
you knew that with his last request,
John had
redeemed a lifetime of aloofness,
of not being cut according to the
pattern of her fantasy.
He was just John, lonely like the rest of
us,
and, on the eve of his last leave taking,
willing to ask for
"Friends,"
granting Julia the grace of giving,
doing what she could
do so well.
For 248 days they were in sync,
profound harmony.
He asked for what he needed,
and it was what she could give
--
best of all.
Did he know that?
Was that part of his
compassion?
Or is that just the web of the universe? --
its
infinite harmony:
knowing what one can give
the other wants to
give,
knowing that its hard
to get human attention,
so all
dramas ultimately take us to death.
O Devayani, all roads lead to
death and rest,
and old molecules released to dance.
And going
-- by asking for what she could give --
dour John released Julia into
life
and knowledge,
affirming her gifts to go on.
What will
she ask for at death?
What
will you?
Copyright © 2000 Jan Haag
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Jan Haag may be reached via e-mail: jhaag@u.washington.edu
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