The Art of Dying

Jacques Crosby
12-25-31-
2-22-08

There'll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing Sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you.*

This is the way I remember Jacques best, on a silent Ignatian retreat at St. John Baptist convent in Mendham on an early Spring Sunday, taking a stroll around the grounds, observing the wildlife. We would often pass on that long winding road going up to the old cemetery and nod to each other, keeping silent comraderie. Once he fell asleep under a tree and missed dinner, having us worried that he had fallen somewhere deep in the woods. But he finally got home in time for a few morsels I seem to remember, quite mortified to have been so late.

Those were wonderful retreats and I was blessed to have been on quite a few arranged by Jacques in the early years of this decade. It was his mission to keep up the tradition of the silent retreat, which is rather a dying practice I believe. It seemed odd for Jacques, who loved to talk and laugh, to be so into silence for a whole weekend, but I loved it, tactiturn soul that I am. Fr. Stowe had started the tradition and we went for about a decade with him, then Fr. Hitchcock continued them for a few more years, with Jacques insisting on the silence and himself making all the arrangements for several years. Finally we stopped going when the good Sisters insisted on filling the house with all and sundry other retreatants and it was very hard to keep silence when all around were Zen groups chanting and carrying on, or a vestry retreat from Paramus yakking their heads off. We tried going up to Vails Gate one year after that, but it wasn't quite the same, although Dr. Norris led some wonderful talks on his just released Songs of Solomon book. That was only a few weeks before Dr. Norris' sudden death so it was very special that we had that time with him.

Dr. Norris and Jacques both left us quite unexpectedly. Jacques had just found out that what he thought was just an ulcer was in fact galloping lymphoma and was facing a very grim future of endless treatments and procedures. It was not the kind of existence I could imagine Jacques dealing with very well, so it was a very bittersweet blessing that he just decided to check out early last Friday morning. When I called there around 11am a policeman answered and said that he had been found dead on the bathroom floor, of natural causes apparently. His neighbor had insisted on opening his door when he hadn't answered.

We will send him off in High Church style with a Solemn Requiem this Saturday at 10:30am, and then he will be interred later next to the transept door, which he had charge of opening and closing for the entrance and exit of the ministers of the altar the past several years. I think I helped create that position of doorkeeper and it really does help to have someone holding the doors rather than us juggling thuribles and candlesticks, struggling to keep it open as we pass through. It was a perfect job for Jacques, who always deigned to serve in whatever useful role he could: staying behind to take communion last in order to watch over the congo's possessions until they were back in their seats. He saw a job that needed to be done and he did it. I will miss him very much on Saturday afternoons, when he would always come by and tend to the flowers and we'd catch up on the latest gossip.

I didn't get to say goodbye to Jacques and the last time I talked to him, only two days before he died, we did not discuss the exact state of his condition, nor even talk about anything important. I think I joked about envying him his weight loss. We were both tired and he sounded very low so I didn't want to keep him long. I could not imagine there would not be another time to thank him for his friendship and all the good times we had. We had not been as close in the recent past as we once were. The last time we really sat down to dinner together was last Easter Even and then the storm clouds were brewing over the Palm Sunday incident which would leave many of us with divided loyalties. I didn't get a chance to tell him how much I really loved him, so I guess this silly blog, which he heartily disapproved of, will have to hear it.

I'll see you in the sky above,
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.**

* G. Harrison

** B. Dylan

Where is my Valentine?

I had the nicest valentine I've had in years this morning when Dr. Goofoff's office called and said they were writing off the balance ($618) of my root canal after receiving my letter. I almost felt bad about revealing all that about her, but then I remembered the hours I spent in that chair and I was still glad I sent it.

It was a blessedly quiet day at work and I was able to get a lot of work done on the new Triduum Sacrum books, last published in 1980 by Fr. Stowe. The new rector has updated and corrected several things, with RSV readings replacing the King James except for Good Friday. The old books had a lot of typos and had gotten very shabby so it's high time they were redone.

I always recall on this day all the wretched Valentine's Days I've had and wonder if there will ever be another good one in this lifetime. I couldn't help remembering the Valentine's Day dinner I had with Fr. Hitchcock after Stations and Benediction on the first Friday of Lent 1997. I was thurifer and while we were at the last station I heard the sacristy door rattling. I figured it was someone having trouble with their key, but then when I went back in the sacristy to get the thurible for Benediction, I saw someone rushing out the other door. I still didn't realize anything was wrong until after Benediction. I went to get my bag and realized my wallet was gone. Luckily he had left my keys but I had $200 plus several credit cards in there plus my bank card, which meant I had no money and couldn't get anymore until I got a new bank card. Fr. Hitchcock got his nice silver pyx stolen also. We discovered that the sacristy door had been jimmied open with a credit card apparently and the West End door had a cigarette butt keeping it open. We had to call the cops and make out a report, then Fr. Hitchcock insisted on taking me to dinner and also giving me $200 so I could go on living until I got a new card. We were an odd couple at The Boulevard with all the romantic couples around us. That was also the night JV and I called it a day after he failed to show up due to a drunken Records Dept. party. So I was grateful to Fr. H for taking me out, although it wasn't quite the valentine I was hoping for.

That was not even the worst Valentine's Day I've ever had. My father was buried on 2-14-76 and I guess I've always been a little sad on this day even when I have had a real valentine. I remember we all went out after the funeral and flew a kite with the young nieces and nephews and then it suddenly just took off in the strong Texas wind and we chased it for a long time before we gave up and came back to a delicious Mexican dinner cooked for us by my father's attendant Jose. I couldn't help remembering the box of chocolates he had given me one year when I didn't get a valentine from anyone. I think I made a remark about it not being exactly the valentine I was hoping for and then left it unopened. I did not like my father very much back then and I guess it has taken all this time to appreciate his good points, of which there were a few. I find myself acting more like him every day, which is scary!

Tonight I spent with the Catalines at the Park Place Diner in Brooklyn Heights, a very salt of the earth kind of place, although tonight the gyro, usually wonderful, was cold and tasteless. We had a good time anyway, with a newly married couple in attendance and I heard all about W's departure from SMV, which was worth the trip.

I had to break the news which I had just gotten before leaving work about our dear Jacques, for whom it must have been truly a Valentine's Day from hell. How his doctor could have missed his very serious condition is beyond me, but it was our dear Dr. O, himself miraculously still alive, who diagnosed him at the annual meeting and sent him to one of his colleagues at Mt. Sinai. He had exploratory surgery today and the outlook is very dire. He's in good hands but the next few days are critical. Let us pray.