Greetings Faithful Disciples!
Monday was Saint Marty’s Day and it was a wonderful 24 hours. I received so many messages from friends and family. It was a lovely reminder that I am loved and appreciated. (In recent months, as you know, I’ve struggled with sadness and a strong sense of worthlessness.) It was like medicine for me. My great niece from Detroit, who made a pilgrimage to the Upper Peninsula to visit us, sent me a beautiful message that put me in the weeds. Cried for a good five minutes.
In the last few years, I’ve become more and more aware of my own mortality. Just this past year, two high school friends died, one unexpectedly and one after a brief cancer battle. My time is limited. EVERYONE’s time is limited. Birthdays just make that fact harder to ignore. I think that’s why birthdays become less and less exciting as time goes by.
Marie Howe writes about visiting her dead brother . . .
The Grave
by: Marie Howe
That first summer I lay on the grass above it as if it were
a narrow bed, just my size,
lying on the ground above my brother’s body like a log
floating on lake water above its own shadow.
***
During the first winter I drove there one afternoon
after Tom and Andy and Beth and Dor and Bahia had been there.
When I stepped out of the car their footprints marked the snowy lawn:
the men’s big boots, the women’s smaller ones,
and Bahia’s little boot prints, as big as my hand, looping and falling down
into a snow angel next to his grave, then another messy angel on it,
and, a grave or two away, another one, and the little blotch where she got up
and brushed herself off. For some crazy reason I was wearing
high-heeled shoes in the snow, and, walking back to the car, they made
ovals and dots, fat exclamation marks,
walking inside the steps of my brothers and sisters.
One November, years later, I went there with Andy
who was, by then, as old as John was when he died,
as we lay on the frozen ground,
me, using my scarf as a pillow, on John’s grave,
and Andy, on top of our father’s grave, one grave away,
and we talked like that for a little while, companionably,
like an old couple talking in bed,
our eyes closed against the sunlight,
and when I cried, Andy didn’t seem to wish me to stop, and that
was a kind of happiness,
lying there with my living brother, talking about our family.
The ground was cold.
Eventually the chill crept through our coats and jeans and
we scuffled up—Andy reached down
to give me his hand—and then it was over.
We walked together back to the car and away from them.
Ten or so years ago, my parents and all of my siblings were still alive. I knew loss, but peripherally—acquaintances and grandmothers and colleagues. I was like Dante, lost in a dark wood in the midpoint of my life, grief chasing me through the trees, baying and snarling. These days, I’m surrounded by my dead. They wake me up in the middle of the night. Drive to work with me. Sometimes, they even teach my classes and write my poems.
Both my father and mother lived long lives. They buried two of their children and most of their close friends. Their funerals were small affairs, consisting of my siblings, a few close relatives, and a handful of acquaintances. Advanced age has a way of winnowing attendance of memorial services. Yet, I firmly believe both my parents were surrounded by ghosts in their last days—Virgils to shepherd them on their journeys. Mom and Dad were living, breathing haunted houses.
I’m not planning on shuffling off this mortal coil any time soon. Hopefully, I will be around to haunt you for many Saint Marty Days to come. I don’t want to be a ghost, whispering my gratitude into the ears of loved ones. While I can still draw breath, I want to say “thank you” to everyone who has helped, loved, encouraged, consoled, and lifted me up during my life.
Because the real gifts in life aren’t Apple watches or iPads or cars or roses or balloons or tapioca.
It’s the people.
Saint Marty wrote a this poem a little while ago. A meditation on youth and mortality . . .
Phaeton
by: Martin Achatz
Phaeton slipped the keys for his dad’s
Firebird into his pocket, climbed out
his bedroom window, hot-footed
to the garage where he shifted the waiting
chariot into neutral, let it glide down
the driveway into the street. Phaeton slid
behind the wheel, ignited the engine, felt
horses trembling awake beneath the hood.
He stomped on the gas, and his world
lunged from 0 to 60 to 70 to 80 to 90,
each curve and bend of the road
a challenge to inertia and gravity.
Phaeton aimed his nose toward sunrise,
rolled down his window, and cruised, sure,
like every teenager, he was going to live forever.
