Dying Season ends today. Well it never really ends as much as it seeks its own level in my life like water filling a container. From July till August the waves of memories rage and roil within me so much so that I go back and bring forward what was to what is. I wish I could follow one of Donna’s mantra’s “There’s a reason they call it history. It happened then.” During Dying Season then is now.
Donna’s memorial service was Wednesday, August 10th, at the Greenwich Village Funeral Home on Bleecker Street. It wasn't until two days before the funeral that I realized it was a block away from where we’d lived together on MacDougal Street, before we were married and the first few years after. We’d come full circle.
That day, walking to her memorial service, I relived the Friday nights we ate at Monte’s on MacDougal. The Saturdays we shopped for mutz at Joe’s Dairy, fresh pasta at Raffetto’s on Houston Street, coffee beans at the Porto Rico Importing Company, prosciutto at Faicco’s Pork Store on Bleecker. The afternoons we just window-shopped in Soho, until we came home with a bag or two anyway.
I told the funeral director to expect about twenty-five people. Nearly a hundred came.
The Rabbi from Hospice presided. He had not known Donna aside from those last two weeks so I asked him if I should have friends send him thoughts on Donna to help with his service. He wrote back,
… good idea. My remarks will be brief for those that truly knew Donna will always be the best equipped to deliver a eulogy. Not withstanding that fact—for me it would be important to have her closest friends “paint a picture” of Donna's essence: her passions, interests, qualities; her character and relationships. What made Donna special in their eyes; her complexities; what made her tick. The idea is to describe the “whole” person in an honest, truthful and honorable fashion. I hope this helps a bit to start the process in developing a sketch of this wonderful lady—your wife Donna.
Seven years later I am still sketching. @loveLtrs2Donna
Rings and ashes