memorial

It's been a full and busy couple of days. Yesterday, we attended a memorial service for someone we didn't ever have the opportunity to meet. His partner of 20 years, David, is someone we dance with in western MA and at dance camp. We don't know him well but we like him a lot and felt drawn to attend the service -- us and about 800 other people.

The service was held in a high school auditorium, the school where Van, the man who died, worked until recently. Last night, I came home and read the carepages, which mark the days between February 16 when they started to engage more seriously with medical advisors, and March 9, the day he died, just a few very short weeks.

Van died of an incredibly aggressive cancer that eventually took his liver, though it may have started in his pancreas or bile ducts. He had back pain in mid-December and started going to doctors. The tests, I guess got more intense, and here we are. So fast.

The service was lovely. There was not a religious bit in there. Instead, about 15 people spoke, including a former student, fellow actors, his brother, directors, friends. People talked about his careers (actor, teacher, nurse) and about the profound effect he had on their lives. David spoke and was so open-hearted, gracious, and loving. There were about six songs sung. One person got us to give Van a standing ovation. We all leapt to our feet and cheered wildly.

Very moving. Ordinarily, I stay afterwards, but we thought we'd never get to talk to David, so we left and went to an afternoon dance in Jamaica Plain. If you don't dance, this won't make any sense -- we should have gone home to bed instead. But there's something about dancing that's so gentle on the soul, so loving, so nourishing. It fixes what ails you. Almost. We lasted through the afternoon, through potluck dinner, and I realized there was no way I could dance in the evening.

So we came home. I read the care pages, and we crashed.