My favorite novel is Gilead by Marilynn Robinson. It is up there in my pantheon with Les Miserables and Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. Spoon River Anthology is a dialogue from the grave, short one-page, free-verse statements from the deceased about their lives. After a while you realize they are interacting with each other, in death as they did in life. It is one of the most creative books I have ever read. All three of these are books I have read more than once. Each time, they are new. (Which is a characteristic of world-class literature).
Gilead is about a Congregationalist minister, John Ames. He is an older man who lost his beloved wife and daughter during childbirth. He has never quite gotten over that loss but then, decades later, a young woman appears in his church one morning. A March-October marriage? Can this possibly work? In fact, it does and they have a son. But then John gets a diagnosis. He has a heart condition that will soon take his life. "Why do you have to be so old? his loving young wife asks. She would have loved having another 30 years with John. But he recognizes reality. He realizes that he will never be able to tell his son, now six, all the stories of his family history that he would ordinarily tell him. Nor will his son have more than a fleeting memory of his father. John decides to write a letter to the son telling him all the things he would have told him had he had the time, and discussing with him all the issues -- religious, philosophical, historical, personal – that he would have discussed with him as he got older. Gilead is the note that John left for his son.
Those who know me know that I spend a lot of time in graveyards. I frequently lead graveyard walks for friends and students. When I discuss gravestones I always say that a gravestone is not about death. It is about life. It is about who we were, what was important to us, and how we want to be remembered.
This letter is the gravestone that Ames leaves for his son. Who I was, what was important to me, how I want to be remembered.
By the way, Jane and I put our gravestone into place a few years ago. It has the normal information: names, dates, professions. It includes the names of our two sons and our four grandchildren. It has the date of our marriage. And it has the slogan, “We were given the gift of time, and used it well.” I stole the first part of that from Ted Kennedy’s memoir. He had three older brothers, all of whom died violently (one in war, two from assassination). He said, “I was given the gift of time,” which his brothers were not. His memoir is a reflection on his life, the achievements that would never have occurred had he died at the age that his brothers died.
We added the last part to our stone to make it clear that we were grateful for our time.
John Ames was not given that gift.
Do you have a thought? You can send me a reaction at Stocktonafterclass@gmail.com