I've Gone Missing

Euclid on a rainy night in Chevy Chase.

I've gone missing.  It's Lent. I've had death in the family. I've lost my friend, Mayme, too.  Had the chance to visit my brother before he died, glad I made the trek.  We got lost going and coming from Boone, North Carolina, and I say that proudly.  We were beside ourselves, hysterical, in grief, scared to death, and yeah, we got lost and had to have Tennessee police escort us into the state of North Carolina.    Oh yeah, and before all that, I got the great news that my heart isn't all that healthy and I need lots of antibiotics for something called h pylori ... and betablockers. You know, the fun stuff.  Rah rah.


So I went missing.  I left all my literary commitments behind and immediately concentrated on what had to be done to honor my brother Marshall, to be helpful without getting in the way, no matter what, though, I didn't want him to die, and be buried as if his life were worthless, although that was a fear I had with really no basis in reality, I still felt as if I had to make sure he was not forgotten.

I've been studying Mozart's Requiem with my choir, and watched the Confutatis scene over and over from the movie, Amadeus,  and perhaps that is why my brother's death, and his memorialization became front and center of all my focus.   I did not want him to die and be thrown in a pit, without even a name on to identify where he was buried.  Mozart died that way and was 'buried' that way.  Mozart, the man who wrote Ave Verum Corpus, the Requiem, wrote symphonies at 5, the operas shortly therafter -- the genius of all of musical humankind.  This man whose music will truly will never die, his memory will grow within the hearts of music lovers for centuries, for many generations, was buried in a pauper's grave.  While we have been studying Mozart's Requiem, I have also written my brother's obituary and suffered the loss of my dear friend, Mayme, I have undergone a transformation myself of sorts.  The silly things that used to be of utmost importance to me no longer matter as much as they did before.  I don't care if my co-worker took a longer break than I; I don't give a rat's patootie if someone leaves me their work to do; my panties don't get in a bunch if someone doesn't show up or craps out on me.  This confrontation of death has consumed me; this Requiem; the words to the music and the way the text is painted with the music Mozart wrote is indescribable.  There are lovely writers of lovely music, wonderful composers, but no one is was or evermore shall be Mozart.

This is a snow-covered lil tree on the street where I work. It
really only snowed a few days here in Lexington this winter
the winter that wasn't. 

So why am I yammering on about all that?  I guess I need to confess that I have allowed...no, permitted the Requiem to be my healer, my challenger, my doubter, my betrayer.  Plus, I need to say these things somehow...and am woefully behind in posting blogs.  I have been distracted and not covering theatre and arts events as much as I usually do (sorry to everyone of you for not being able to do that, i love you all but I'm crazy busy with work and life events).  I have isolated myself, away from any good friends who want to spend time with me, I appreciate their gestures, but I really want to grieve by myself...and that's wrong. I have to allow myself to be ministered to as much as I feel a that I must minister to people.

This Easter, this week of reawakening, the baptisms that will happen on Easter Sunday, just like when I was kid, will help me have some happy closure, but the  main thing on my mind these days is how damn short and fragile life can be.  If you love someone, let them know. 


In the end, I want you to remember me as someone who was kind to others.  I hope that happens.
peace,
Kimmy