The music of mourning

Kate sat in the wing-back chair, diminished. The silent intricacies of the Persian carpet absorbed the weight of the room. Sobre crown moulding undulated from the grey wall to the shadowed ceiling, casting tunnels of darkness. Oboe music clung to the curtains and hung in the air.

She stirred in her chair and invited me to sit down. Staring into the middle of the room, she remarked, "All I can do is listen to this music, music I knew as a child ... and Edith Piaf ... and Jacques Brel. It soothes me, reminds me who I was."

It had been two weeks since Kate's husband died. Simon's dying had been gradual, and the months of care, consuming. The rush of condolences was over and now she was alone, her resources depleted, her focused intensity gone.

"Toward the end," Kate said, "Simon was so, so thin - as you know. Even though it was early summer he was cold at night. I kept him warm in bed -and, you know, in the last days, when his dreadful pain was better, he was content. He died peacefully, here at home as he wished. But for me there is no contentment."

The oboe fell silent, and a rich, powerful voice filled the room. It was a voice that had known pain and suffering. Non, je ne regret rien. Kate listened intently and sighed. FIGURE 1

"I have music, this music, and just enough energy to listen. Food doesn't interest me. Reading is impossible. The house has to look after itself. But a strange thing happens late at night: I have an urge to write letters. I write until three or four in the morning. Then I have to mail them - and not just in the box down the street. I get in the car and drive to the main post office. The city seems deserted at that hour. But I feel compelled to mail the letters at the main post office. Don't you think that's strange?"

"Sometimes when we grieve the abnormal becomes normal," I offered.

The insistent rhythm of Quand on a que l'amour began in the background. Kate murmured the lyric, "If only we have love, death has no shadow." She looked up at me. "Two nights after Simon died I was sitting at the kitchen table with my son and daughter. We had finished supper and were having our tea. Suddenly we were aware that Simon was in the room. He was there for only a moment. Several times since then I have gone into a room and sensed his presence.

"How does that make you feel?'

"At first I wondered if I was losing my mind. But now I like to think that Simon is trying to comfort me. The minutes are so heavy, the hours endless. How do you fill this emptiness? My children, my source of strength, are grieving too. We are dry wells in a desert."

Lying on the table was a collection of Chekhov's short stories. I picked it up and examined the table of contents. The story I was looking for, "Heartache," was not there.

I put the book down. "One of my favourite Chekhov stories," I began, "is about a cab driver whose son had just died. The story takes place late at night, in winter. As the snow falls the cabby drives his sleigh from one place to another, and as his passengers come and go he tries to tell them about his son. But no one pays attention. Finally he returns to the stable. In the darkness of the stall he does his chores and starts to talk to his horse: 'Now, let's say you had a little colt, and you were that little colt's own mother. And suddenly, let's say, that little colt departed this life ... .'" FIGURE 2

The background music changed. Now it was choral music, polyphonic and bleak.

"I know what Chekhov means," Kate replied. "'To whom shall I tell my sorrow?" I have a good friend, Theresa. She gets me through the little things that seem so difficult now. She listens to my music, and to me."

I saw Kate in my office two months later. It was one of her first ventures into public. She had more energy and had begun to take an interest in reorganizing her house. But her speech was less than animated, and her face showed the effort of the visit. I asked about her music.

"I still play Edith Piaf, but not as much. Her songs have absorbed most of the pain. Now I listen to Schumann. I began with the little piano pieces, the Kinderscenen, and moved on to the works for oboe and piano. Now I'm listening to the second symphony. I still prefer simple, sad pieces. But I do find myself paying attention to the music and the little complexities."

Toward the end of October I ran into Kate in the grocery store. Some of the old spark had returned to her eyes, and she told me that she was having several friends over for supper that night.

"I'm not preparing anything fancy, just soup and salad and a little fish."

"What music are you listening to now?"

"Schubert. I began with his string quartet in D minor; now I'm listening to the string quartet in C major and the symphony in B minor. Tonight I think I'll play the Trout Quintet."

Kate returned to the office in January. Her energy and animation had returned. She had gone through her seed catalogues and started some garden designs. She had a trip planned for late March and had been to the symphony twice.

"What music are you listening to now?" I asked.

"The Emperor Concerto. You know I couldn't have listened to that music even two months ago."

Not long after that conversation I listened to Beethoven's fifth concerto, the Emperor. The piano engaged the orchestra in a joyful, triumphant collaboration. I didn't need any special knowledge of music to understand that Kate had completed her tasks of mourning.