Tuesday:
I had never flown into La Guardia at 11:30 at night. The whole leg up
from Charlotte, the air was clearer or the window cleaner than usual--or
something--anyway the lights of the cities and towns on the way were
strangely glowing, as though spotlighted from above sometimes, and then
we went up the Hudson with all of Manhattan block by block right outside
our window like the opening shots of a movie only somehow more unreal,
bright as day at 11:30 at night. New York has never been so beautiful.
It’s not that the days are warm and breezy and the nights balmy, that
the blossoming trees are spectacular against the grey buildings, the
people varied and interesting, though they are. It’s that my partner’s
warm, breezy, beautiful and slightly balmy sister has died, and we are
wanting her to be here to see this particular sight, wanting to tell her
about that encounter. We had dinner in one of her favorite restaurants
last night, the Cornelia Street Cafe.
Great food, and the check came with a postcard of the place. Claudia’s
first thought was, “I could send that to my sister,” but she can’t. Our
days are filled with sad decisions, but we are helped by her generous
friends. The memorial service we are planning will be mostly people
telling stories about Susan, with the minister emceeing and summing up
at the end--her suggestion. I told her about my disappointment with the
minister at Claudia’s mother’s funeral. He was from the church where
Marge had taught Sunday School for forty years, so we thought he could
really talk about her. But his mention of her was perfunctory, and the
talk was all about Jesus. Wrong. We’ll have music too, and last night
Claudia got the call-back from the sound person, and he will record the
stories as well.
Since
this was all unexpected and last-minute, we’ve been going from hotel to
hotel, first a just adequate airport hotel, then the Mercer in SoHo, a
place for the rich and hip, too expensive, but we had to take what we
could get, and it was just walkable from Susan’s apartment in the
Village, half a block off Washington Square. We enjoyed the luxury
(Claudia popped the extra $45 for a double-size bathtub and that was the
best part) and I decided I was enjoying it the more because I wasn’t
brought up to expect it. Nor was she. Now we’re at the Washington Square
Hotel, for the hip and not-so-rich, and just found out that our two-day
reservations can be stretched to four. We got here Friday night and
right now it’s too early Tuesday morning. I woke up at 4:00 a.m., and
writing on Susan’s laptop is something I can do without turning on a
light and waking Claudia up.
So
we were walking to a funeral home to check it out and passed two young
women with young children standing on a corner, the little girl
earnestly saying “Mama, we always see new friends at the library.” A few
minutes later I spotted a license plate HUG-YRKD with the dash being a
tiny silhouette of New York State. Earlier I had noticed a young man
with a tee-shirt that said “Your mom would like me” and he looked like
she would—nice-looking but not too handsome. We are drinking our decaf
espresso at Reggio’s, we always do when we are here, and Sunday
afternoon we listened to the jazz band that plays in the park for
donations.
The
church we’re using is Judson Memorial, right across the street from the
Washington Square dog run, where Susan got acquainted with a lot of her
friends. She’d lived in the neighborhood for forty years. Someone put a
notice of her death up in the dog run, with flowers, and somebody else
added a photo of her and her dog, and more flowers. Yesterday we wrote
in the time and place of the memorial service. More friends are flying
in from LA, Cincinnati, San Miguel Allende.
Susan
had asthma, and had had several attacks that required an ambulance trip
to St. Vincent’s hospital. This time she didn’t make it. She had just
come home from a merry lunch with one of her best and oldest friends
celebrating the friend’s upcoming wedding, and called 911 from her
apartment saying she was having trouble breathing.
One
of Susan’s eccentricities was her (to me) unreasonable love of animals.
I admire animals from a reasonable distance and want to protect
endangered species and all, but she, despite her asthma, had three cats
and a dog in her tiny apartment. She gave the lie to that stereotype
that animal lovers don’t care about people; we keep hearing from
neighbors about her kindnesses to them. To our relief, her friend in LA
will take the three cats (we are both allergic). Another friend took
them all to the country till they can go to their permanent homes, and
the dog, Edythe, may stay with him.
Today we have another long list of things to do so I will try to go back to sleep.
Wednesday:
A good night’s sleep, leftover dolmas for breakfast on Susan’s little
deck, and we’re attacking another list. That band in the park? Yesterday
evening we found them playing there, and Claudia hired them to play
after the memorial service Saturday. Somebody told us Judson Memorial
has been famous for a long time for its poetry readings and cutting-edge
drama. We have to be out of the sanctuary by 5:30 so the stage crew can
set up for the evening's play.
Saturday
morning: no room at the inn--or any other hotel in Manhattan--so we are
in the apartment of one of Susan’s friends. I’m sitting in the
breakfast nook looking out at the East River, two bridges, an island, a
lot of tall buildings, and some shorter buildings with roof gardens. The
memorial is today, and we have things pretty well lined up, but this
morning we still need to get the program finalized and printed, arrange
photos of Susan’s life and work on foam-core, get some flowers to put in
vases Susan made, get paper tablecloths and napkins, and this afternoon
get everything to the church and set up. Someone else is bringing
strawberries and bottled water (coffee got too complicated), and a bunch
of people are coming early to help. Barge going down the river, leaving
a foamy wake and smooth curved waves out to the shores. Yesterday it
rained but today it’s sunny with a few clouds and I think it will stay
that way.
Sunday
afternoon: at the window overlooking the East River again, speedboat
going up, what looks like a tour boat going down. Sun and clouds. We
walked the resident long-haired dachshund, Stanley, this morning by the
sculpture-studded grounds of the UN, but mostly we’re doing nothing,
recovering from the last-minute rush to get things done yesterday and
from the memorial itself, which went pretty well. We forgot to get a
guest book, though we both thought of it, and I forgot to put in the
program which organization we wanted donations sent to in Susan’s name, the International Primate Protection League, though I did put it into the death notice in the Times.
On
the other hand, we heard some great stories and tributes to Susan, and
people who had never seen her crochet art, only her artful crocheted
hats, got a look at one of her wall hangings and photos of many other
pieces. The minister was brief and nicely ecumenical, and Susan’s many
show-biz friends sang touching songs. Water turned out to be a better
idea than coffee since the sanctuary was warm, and the strawberries
looked good and tasted better.
When
the band came in and saw Susan’s picture, they realized they knew
her--she had not only stopped to listen but warned them that the
proposed reconstruction of the park threatened their playing as well as
the dog run, which she was tenaciously defending. Besides being an
animal rights activist, Susan was a volunteer tutor at a local literacy
project, and one of the teachers came and spoke. Claudia and I needed a
third to sing a three-part round I wrote, so I called Sue Ribaudo, a friend from Children’s Music Network who is starting a Threshold Choir in New York. She came and sang but first she washed all the strawberries.
© 2007 by Nancy Schimmel
Thursday, May 17, 2007
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
