Russ&Suzie

Trip Log
2007-10-18 16:17:58 (UTC)

Settling down after Mother's Memorial Gathering

Wayne and his family had traveled to Wisconsin sometime
before hand, for the Memorial Gathering in Marshfield on
October 14, of course, but also to close on the Weyawega
house that had been Ane's parents' and dearly beloved by
that family. Wayne plans to restore things upon
retirement, which will be three years from now, likely, as
his dream grant got awarded (finally) to study the low
oxygen "dead zone" at the mouth of the Mississippi that
goes to the Gulf of MExico. He stopped at the Madison
storage space to take Mother's bed, sewing machine and
other artefacts to Weyawega.

IN the meantime, I'd traveled to Cincinnati for the annual
meeting of the Association of Politics and Life Sciences
to which I presented two talks, one on the biology of
religion and the other on the biology of art. Before then
I'd presented on October 8 to the Madison LIterary Society
and on the 16th to UW's Chaos-Complex Models seminar: 4
presentations in eight days. Mother's drive in art was a
factor in what I said in some of these.

To the Gathering. 101 people came and a number of people
spoke, including the master of ceremonies who was Wayne's
son in law, an architect in Chicago, Rick Phillips.
AFterwards, as the two sons Wayne and I spoke, Wayne from
his very well written memoir that he'd written in a way of
settling his grief. I read a poem that I'd written in
summer, 2006, The Spencer Trip. I then gestured to her
works a few of which were arrayed on a head table, and
mentioned my watercolorist colleague who had commented on
the backlit detail that indicated to him her intense
visual experience. I also alluded to the death of Mother's
sister, REbecca, two years ago, as well as to her husband,
Alex Goeser, who died just days ago. He said on hearing of
MOther's death that he wished to go to the Memorial,
although that would have been impossible. My cousins who
were their daughters, Gail Piotrowski and Joni Frey from
Boise, ID, felt very appreciative in their later
conversation. They'd had a more local ceremony in their
home town the day before. All were grateful for his last
year in a nursing home where GAil came from Wausau every
Saturday and where the staff loved him and he them, dying
much more peacefully than had previously been the case.

Other speakers included my daughter Martha Gardner from
Boston, who made me proud of her articulateness, Rick's
wife Linda who felt a very special kinship with Mother,
Wayne's son ROb who appreciated MOther's encouraging his
art career, and a number of others spoke. A minister of
the congregation which Mother had attended spoke at
Wayne's invitation, as he and his wife had been very
attentive to Mother's well being during her stay in the
Marshfield house. He was very eloquent, and spoke to her
dignity, "she was a lady," which apparently came across to
the rest of the congregation of this Church of Christ. And
I realized in a way that I hadn't before that this dignity
made everyone there feel more dignified as well as more
worthy because she was so respectful of them.

A high school friend who lives still in Granton (location
of our school) came and said in an email this morning that
he learned more of our family than he'd ever before known,
not too surprising as we'd been out of touch for literally
fifty years, reconnecting at a reunion in 2006, one that
Mother had attended too. So he and I email now with some
pleasure. He articulated some of his great distress over
losing his wife a few years ago, and several family
members later listened empathically to him. He in fact
wept and the loss remains raw.

So now the paintings have returned to the storage, Wayne
and I will place her ashes next summer when he's in-state,
and we recommence life with some emptiness as we pass by
where her apartment was and Mineral Point Road has new
meaning -- there I and Mother traveled to sample the
seasons in the country on a regular basis.




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