I put my heart into the following words, to honor her today at celebration of her life, held at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.
Over a decade ago, I was living with Nienie for the summer in her condo by Lake of the Isles. One night, after dinner, she pulled out a poem for me by German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. It is a poem that I find a way to share with my students each year, a poem that was framed above my bed here, and a poem I come back to frequently when I need some grounding, when I need a reminder to open myself up to the present moment and whatever it is bringing. I would like to share it now with you.
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
An excerpt from this poem made its way into a memoir I wrote this September, as I was drafting a piece alongside my students. Unsuccessfully fighting back tears in my classroom one morning, as my new sophomores worked quietly at their desks, I began writing…
My eyes keep welling up with tears. I wish I had a better poker face, but her image materializes in my mind’s eye and I feel my breath catch. My lip quivers. And my throat tightens. The news still feels unreal, surreal, a hoax, a bad joke, it can’t be true.
I float back to Argentina. Just two years ago; our South American adventure inspired by my life in Ecuador. Images arise … The Japanese Garden, shoe stores, fine dining, the best steak, the clear crystalline sky. And then we’re stirring a big pot. I look up at Nienie, as I am grinning and laughing because isn’t it fun to stir the pot, so to speak, to mix things up, create just a bit of chaos? This pot simmers with rabbit stock, butter, onions and white wine. We’ll be throwing in more veggies soon, potatoes and brilliant and bright bell peppers. They’ll hit our tongues and make our tastebuds tango.
Tango … tango … tango … Another summer night. My 20-year-old anxious self sits with NieNie in her front room, the one with windows to the street, the one with the tall giraffe, wooden, brought back from one of her trips to another exotic place. And Julie, with her beautiful French accent, is with us this night too, visiting from Paris. Cold Bryer’s vanilla ice cream is slowly melting in our bowls, dressed in chocolate sauce and buttoned with walnuts. Soothing words Julie and Nienie are speaking to my scared and shaky soul, about to embark for a semester in Spain. Through Rilke’s poem she tells me, “You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing.”
So some weeks later, I do. I take her words and Rilke’s, and I fly the farthest I’ve ever been on my own. And it’s unnerving and dizzying and brilliant to be planted on Spanish soil for those four months. It is somehow serendipitous the way I have come back to the place I first traveled with my NieNie, my grandmother onlookers mistake for my mother. A common misconception that we giggle at, smile at and delight in.
I thought we’d have so many more times to laugh and travel and sip wine and simply talk, letting our voices drift into the air, our thoughts and words mingling together with the birds that chirped outside of her window. Another warm, summer night we sat comfortably in a moment of silence. But she broke the stillness. “I’m sick” she simply said. “I have metastasized lung cancer.”
Such words inspire disbelief and confusion and anger and devastation. She is my NieNie. She is the one who has inspired me in the kitchen, inspired my love of culture, inspired my heart, inspired my mind. She has grown my soul.
And now I sit here today, and I can’t stop the tears from pooling in my eyes, from making a river down my cheeks, as memories come back to me.
Memoir, memories, moments. Moments that weave themselves into the fabric of our beings. If I am a tapestry, she is the red thread that adds depth to my design’s beauty.
I use the present tense here today still … she is the red thread that adds depth to my design’s beauty. Nienie’s body is not here to hug, or to sip wine with. We cannot do those things we delighted in doing with her, be it debating politics or the latest book club read or planning a time to meet at a movie. But her spirit is still here among us, as we share stories … about times we laughed with her, about times we cried with her, about times we cooked with her. We can tell stories about the way she molded our minds, about the way she encouraged us, and about the way she loved us … These stories are braided into all of our beings. Nienie’s body is not present with us today, but her spirit lives on in each of us.
I recently came across a Rumi quote. That ancient Persian poet long ago wrote: The day is gone, but my story is not finished. All of us here today are Nienie’s living story. and we will carry her with us through remembering her wisdom when we are shopping. When we walk into Neiman Marcus, Nienie’s favorite shopping phrase will pop into our heads. CPW, cost per wear … Yes, yes you can spend a small fortune on those shoes, as long as you will wear them, everyday, for the rest of your life. We carry her into our days as we continue her traditions, when we let our children or grandchildren eat dessert before dinner, as long as it is Bryer’s vanilla ice cream with Pepperidge Farm cookies, because this pairing is indeed a perfect prelude to steak, a bit of salad, and lots of french bread. Her words are woven into ours when we retell the stories she loved to tell us, like about the time that her eldest son climbed the roof to fly off it just like Superman. Nienie’s story does continue now as we draw on the strength and perseverance that we learned from watching her.
I love you to the infinity where your soul now exists, Nienie.
