The Art of Dying
Jacques Crosby12-25-31-
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.
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.**
In the tall grass, in the ones I love,
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go.**
* G. Harrison
** B. Dylan
posted by Piscina at 9:17 PM
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