hijack!
any of you read the letter about his wife herbert put in one of the last of his books?
he wrote this the morning after her death
One of the best things I can say about Bev is there was nothing in our life
together I need forget, not even the graceful moment of her death. She gave me
then the ultimate gift of her love, a peaceful passing she had spoken of without
fear or tears, allaying thereby my own fears. What greater gift is there than
to demonstrate you need not fear death?
The formal obituary would read: Beverly Ann Stuart Forbes Herbert, born October
20, 1926, Seattle, Washington; died 5:05 P.M. February 7, 1984, at Kawaloa,
Maui. I know that is as much formality as she would tolerate. She made me
promise there would be no conventional funeral "with a preacher's sermon and my
body on display." As she said: "I will not be in that body then but it
deserves more dignity than such a display provides."
She insisted I go no further than to have her cremated and scatter her ashes at
her beloved Kawaloa "where I have felt so much peace and love." The only
ceremony -- friends and loved ones to watch the scattering of her ashes during
the singing of "A Bridge Over Troubled Waters."
She knew there would be tears then as there are tears while I write these words
but in her last days she often spoke of tears as futile. She recognized tears
as part of our animal origins. The dog howls at the loss of its master.
Another part of human awareness dominated her life: Spirit. Not in any mawkish
religious sense nor in anything most Spiritualists would associate with the
word. To Bev, it was the light shining from awareness onto everything she
encountered. Because of this, I can say despite my grief and even within grief
that joy fills my spirit because of the love she gave and continues to give me.
Nothing in the sadness at her death is too high a price to pay for the love we
shared.
Her choice of a song to sing at the scattering of her ashes went to what we
often said to each other -- that she was my bridge and I was hers. That
epitomizes our married life.
We began that sharing with a ceremony before a minister in Seattle on June 20,
1946. Our honeymoon was spent on a firewatch lookout atop Kelley Butte in
Snoqualmie National Forest. Our quarters were twelve feet square with a cupola
above only six feet square and most of that filled by the firefinder with which
we located any smoke we saw.
In cramped quarters with a spring-powered Victrola and two portable typewriters
taking up considerable space on the one table, we pretty well set the pattern of
our life together: work to support music, writing and the other joys living
provides.
None of this is to say we experienced constant euphoria. Far from it. We had
moments of boredom, fears, and pains. But there was always time for laughter.
Even at the end, Bev still could smile to tell me I had positioned her correctly
on her pillows, that I had eased the aching of her back with a gentle massage
and the other things necessary because she could no longer do them for herself.
In her final days, she did not want anyone but me to touch her. But our married
life had created such a bond of love and trust she often said the things I did
for her were as though she did them. Though I had to provide the most intimate
care, the care you would give an infant, she did not feel offended nor that her
dignity had been assaulted. When I picked her up in my arms to make her more
comfortable or bathe her, Bev's arms always went around my shoulders and her
face nestled as it often had in the hollow of my neck.
It is difficult to convey the joy of those moments but I assure you it was
there. Joy of the spirit. Joy of life even at death. Her hand was in mine
when she died and the attending doctor, tears in his eyes, said the thing I and
many others had said of her.
"She had grace."
Many of those who saw that grace did not understand. I remember when we entered
the hospital in the pre-dawn hours for the birth of our first son. We were
laughing. Attendants looked at us with disapproval. Birth is painful and
dangerous. Women die giving birth. Why are these people laughing?
We were laughing because the prospect of new life that was part of both of us
filled us with such happiness. We were laughing because the birth was about to
occur in a hospital built on the site of the hospital where Bev was born. What
a marvelous continuity!
Our laughter was infectious and soon others we met on the way to the delivery
room were smiling. Disapproval became approval. Laughter was her grace note in
moments of stress.
Hers was also the laughter of the constantly new. Everything she encountered
had something new in it to excite her senses. There was a naivete about Bev
that was, in its own way, a form of sophistication. She wanted to find what was
good in everything and everyone. As a result, she brought out that response in
others.
"Revenge is for children," she said. "Only people who are basically immature
want it."
She was known to call people who had offended her and plead with them to put
away destructive feelings. "Let us be friends." The source of none of the
condolences that poured in after her death surprised me.
It was typical of her that she wanted me to call the radiologist whose treatment
in 1974 was the proximate cause of her death and thank him "for giving me these
ten beautiful years. Make sure he understands I know he did his best for me
when I was dying of cancer. He took the state of the art to its limits and I
want him to know my appreciation."
Is it any wonder that I look back on our years together with a happiness
transcending anything words can describe? Is it any wonder I do not want or
need to forget one moment of it? Most others merely touched her life at the
periphery. I shared it in the most intimate ways and everything she did
strengthened me. It would not have been possible for me to do what necessity
demanded of me during the final ten years of her life, strengthening her in
return, had she not given of herself in the preceding years, holding back
nothing. I consider that to be my great good fortune and most miraculous
privilege.
FRANK HERBERT,
Port Townsend, WA
April 6, 1984
was apparently that rarest of things a man blessed who knew it
