Perhaps the most jarring thing among the many jarring things I saw at Lana's apartment this week must have been the small collection of books on ghosts, death and spirits, sitting in their very used condition next to her computer. These were the reference materials for her book. When I first made the connection some time back about the topic of her developing book, I couldn't help but pay attention to the blazing irony. Many of her students have commented similarly on classes they have taken with her on loss, memory etc. It is all quite jarring. And as the weeks pass, I begin to form my own sense of understanding for the phenomenon of ghosts and spirits. Because it has been a few weeks and I still cannot shake the sense that she is with me. This is probably mostly because I still can't register the reality, that she is no longer here. But I really feel like she is still with me...of course then there are the moments when I am overwhelmed with the sense that she actually isn't...but many times it is the opposite, and I feel haunted by her, not necessarily in a bad way, but haunted nonetheless. The relationships we form with the dead are bizarre, perhaps even oogy, and "tricky that". When people are no longer physically present, when they revert back to merely the theoretical, we too begin to theorize about them and about our relationship to them; we have the freedom to do that, since they are not physically present to object.
Yet is that really true? An eerie sense trails me that I am not alone in my fabrication, that even in death, relationships continue to be two-sided. And I am not merely speaking about the connection from the past that we carry with us and therefore keep alive and present, and make part of the future. But something real and present and developing, in another sort of way. As people become concepts, we have the unique opportunity to connect to something more essential than in life perhaps, or rather, that we trpically don't or can't connect with in life. The place we wished to get to but could not, intimacy, in the spiritual sense, maybe, just maybe, that happens in death? Whether or not there is a "place" or reality called heaven or hell is not even what I am talking about...and maybe this is actually what they are. But there is a sense that trails us that this cannot be it. Not even in the sense that one day, after death has taken us both, we will be reunited. But we cannot accept that in this life, when one has left, that there is a real stop, and end, that the connections we make have a finitude to them. And don't get me wrong: not the affects of the connection, because we knowe we can keep that going; but the actual connection itself. The meaning we create through connection to people is simply too strong, too stalwart, too real, to be snuffed in an instant by a physical change. It just cannot be. I don't exactly know what I mean; this is all the beginning of my musings on life and death etc. But there are so many moments that I feel that she is with me. And I am not one to believe in any and all of the unrevealed, especially without some sort of empirical proof.
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6 comments:
I was thinking about this today, too. I even wrote something about it but did not put it on my blog. Interesting how we were both writing about this on the same day.
I definitely feel Dr. Schwebel's presence with me, still, in an odd way. I still feel her influence thriving, but not in something she left behind in me, rather something that is still alive, still being fed. It's hard to explain but I think you understand. I feel it at odd times, almost as though I am at one with her, and then I shake myself suddenly and I am not, but I just have these odd moments when it feels like she is there, trying to reach out to me, and then I know I must be delusional in some way because how can that be possible?
Since I moved to the UWS a couple years ago, I was always on the look-out for Lana, thinking I'd be bound to run into her at some point. And once, just once, I actually did! And it was one of the highlights of this past year. And it was the last time I would ever see her in this world. Yet even now, as I continue to roam her old stomping grounds, I keep thinking that I have seen her again. In half a second, my heart skips a beat, but then it sinks as I remember that she is no longer with us, and that must have been someone else's dark curls or perky scarf whizzing by... Or perhaps it was not- becuase, just as erachet says, I, too, "definitely feel Dr. Schwebel's presence with me, still, in odd way," all the time (though she will always be "Lana" to me, after she spent so many months trying to get me to call my much-revered prof. by her first name, as an undergrad). Certainly, her mark remains. Most certainly, her spirit lives on. For one so spirited as she will never leave the hearts and minds of those so fortunate as to have known her in life. We will not let go, we cannot move on, we will never forget. Though I have seen Lana only once in the 5 years since I graduated from Stern, I have thought about her, she has come to my mind, almost daily, both before her death and since. I would not be who or where I am today without her touch, and I pray that it will continue to guide me, and all the many others she inspired, ad infinitum.
P.S. By the way, I have NEVER posted a comment on a blog before in my life, though I have read hundreds, thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of blog entries over the not-so-many years since this new mode of expression hit the scene, and obviously thought of commenting in the past. But isn't that just like Lana?! - making you do something you'd never done before, but had kind of wanted to, or wished you could... Look! She's doing it even now - reaching out, from the world beyond, and inspiring people to try something new, making people believe that they can, that they should, engage with the world, leave their mark, take the plunge... And thus, Lana's greatness lives on. Non solum in spirit, sed etiam in practice, and, surely, in perpetuity...
rachel - non solum, sed etiam = not only, but also! Right?
my gosh, I REALLY miss latin class.
I don't think we can call something "delusional" simply because we don't understand how it can be possible.
I am reading all these comments and they are very meaningful to me although I never knew Dr. Schwebel. My Hebrew name is Shira. A song is a voice but more than a voice, and a voice is a body but more than a body.
I think the best thing to do when we have experiences we can't understand is listen to them, just listen.
About being written, inscribed in the Book of Life...I am letting your words sink in about that, Shira.
I am very glad you began this blog. It isn't over yet.
hi shira-how did you hear about this blog? your interest interests me..
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