Nancy Felson
When Death Comes, by Mary Oliver (Oct 03, 2006)
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
For our mother, Virginia Raphaelson Felson, who died in the early morning of June 30th at the age of 101 3/4, death did not come “like the hungry bear in autumn,” nor “like the measle-pox,” nor “like an iceberg between the shoulder blades.” It came gently, in her sleep, in her bedroom at Evergreen, where she lived for the past seven years. I was in the neighboring bed, sound asleep. I awoke with a start because the room felt too quiet. Yet it was peaceful around her, a little eery; but ultimately, she had a gentle death. A very gentle death.
In contrast, her life was an exuberant and ever-evolving one. This I witnessed close-at-hand over the past decade, when, indeed, she was declining in one capacity or another; but in the face of that decline, she exhibited the courage of a lion or in Mary Oliver’s words,” she was a lion of courage.” “A lion of courage” – that’s what we, her five children, witnessed on our visits. Occasional crabbiness, occasional irritation; but, predominantly, good cheer.
Mom’s ability to “think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,” stood her in good stead. Some of her closest companions over these years have been her caretakers. Many of you witnessed the loving care of Carmen and Shawnee and her daughter Mila, and several others in the past.
Mom’s curiosity and wit never waned. She did “step through the door (of Death) full of curiosity, wondering/ what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness.” She speculated on reunions with Ben, who died 28 years previously: would he consider her too old? would he have a younger companion? Facetious questions, yes. But she was contemplating in her imagination what might lay ahead. And in facing death she did not find herself “sighing and frightened, full of argument.”
She had close calls. She wanted, at times to die. But curiosity and concern revived her, restored her spirit. She’d remind herself that she wanted to see how her eight grandchildren would develop: Sabrina and Joseph, Alexander and Rachel, Jacob and Benji, Amit and Yifot; and her great grandchildren: Mia and Madeleine, Michael, Lev and Augie, Hannah, Tessa and Caroline. And that she wanted to visit with her nieces and nephews, and her friends. We will all miss her vibrant and loving personality and generous spirit. It lives on in her family and friends.
In short, Virginia Raphaelson Felson did not end up “simply having visited this world.”
Indeed, when it was over, she might have said, with conviction:
All my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
The Felson Family 