Rest in Peace
(Marietta Del Favaro Smetherman, 1947-2011)
June 22, 2012
Six months have passed, and only now we are learning that Marietta has died. The various obituaries online are vague and unsatisfying: she died, they all say, suddenly and peacefully at home. Her home was a lovely place in NOLA’s French Quarter that she opened up to us during our 40th college reunion in 2009; we sat around the patio and pool while we reconnected with friends from our life-changing years at Newcomb College, years that --- to me at least --- represented growing up and growing out from typically clichéd childhoods in the then-simple and regionally-distinct world of the mid-1960s.
Marietta was a Facebook friend and an occasional email contact; she had many friends closer than I ever was, but still… “Suddenly and peacefully at home” made no sense as she was (as I am and I presume most friends of our era are) healthy and happy enough and, we presume, ready for whatever Life has to offer for, we presume, another two or more decades of, we presume, ordinary and appropriate aging and decline and eventual end. But now: “Suddenly and peacefully at home.” How stunning, how shocking, and most of all, how sad.
I am writing this at Manny’s Beach Club, seated in my regular chair and meditating on the Sea of Cortez. I think about the ebb and flow, about life and death. If I am lucky, I am thinking, I will slowly devolve into a diminished Self, and people may or may not know of my best years, ones that include now. Other friends will precede me into death, that’s given, but oh: so young, Marietta was, so vital, and so loved.
You Never Know. That is the lesson I am re-learning today. For six months, unknown to the rest of us, her husband, daughter, closer friends, and family have mourned and perhaps come to terms with this loss. I miss her. How odd to say that since we weren’t in close contact. It is the idea of her absence --- the presence of her absence --- that is, today, beyond my imagination.
We entered Newcomb as freshman in late August of 1965, arriving on the very day Hurricane Betsy hit NOLA. Parents threw us out of cars in front of our un-air-conditioned dorm, hurrying back north to avoid the storm that would change many lives. For us incoming freshman, it was An Adventure, and the bonds we made that first week --- without electricity, with orientation cancelled, with the city in ruins --- was a form of boot camp. My time at Newcomb revealed a world larger than my hometown, and those years in NOLA --- including marriage and a baby (now 43 years old, please) --- changed my life’s trajectory forever. You, my freshman “sisters,” will always remain my closest friends, whether you know it or not, whether I say it or not. There, I’ve said it.
My “grown-up” life (starting around age 30, I was slow) is something I could never have imagined in the Sixties when you knew me. I am not the person you knew then, and I could and maybe should apologize, a la 12-step programs, for who I was then: not deep, not honest, not all sorts of things that Life, my life, has led me to be. I hope we will continue to stay in touch, no matter our politics or values, so that our big moments --- illnesses, transitions and deaths --- will not be quite so stunning.
For me, Newcomb was a “coming out,” an evolution from a limited world-view to an awareness of life’s possibilities. Along the way, I have acknowledged and regretted my faults and “sins” and hope you all know that I eventually outgrew them and into the right way of life --- simple, quiet, solitary, art-based --- that I plan to lead until it is my turn to Not Be.
Marietta, I hope there is a heaven. I hope it is full of friends who share stories and memories and experiences --- like those from Newcomb, 1965-1969 --- that made a difference in how we saw the world and its possibilities. If there is a heaven for me, Marietta will be there with her smile. Her Facebook photo is the Marietta I remember: happy, energetic, and positive. She had a much-loved daughter and many, many students whose lives she apparently affected. It is a half-year late, but I want to share my love for her. She had, she was one of those personalities that invites love. What could be a better memorial?
Marietta, this is my message to you: you went too soon. If I’d known earlier, I’d have done what I’m doing today, watching the water come and go in front of that boundless horizon. I wish your spirit to go on and on, like the sea, mingling Being and Not Being, the eternal Now, with us or without us. Today I will watch the tide come and go, and I will order a margarita.
Suddenly. Peacefully. At home. Marietta, this one is for you.
Marietta was a Facebook friend and an occasional email contact; she had many friends closer than I ever was, but still… “Suddenly and peacefully at home” made no sense as she was (as I am and I presume most friends of our era are) healthy and happy enough and, we presume, ready for whatever Life has to offer for, we presume, another two or more decades of, we presume, ordinary and appropriate aging and decline and eventual end. But now: “Suddenly and peacefully at home.” How stunning, how shocking, and most of all, how sad.
I am writing this at Manny’s Beach Club, seated in my regular chair and meditating on the Sea of Cortez. I think about the ebb and flow, about life and death. If I am lucky, I am thinking, I will slowly devolve into a diminished Self, and people may or may not know of my best years, ones that include now. Other friends will precede me into death, that’s given, but oh: so young, Marietta was, so vital, and so loved.
You Never Know. That is the lesson I am re-learning today. For six months, unknown to the rest of us, her husband, daughter, closer friends, and family have mourned and perhaps come to terms with this loss. I miss her. How odd to say that since we weren’t in close contact. It is the idea of her absence --- the presence of her absence --- that is, today, beyond my imagination.
We entered Newcomb as freshman in late August of 1965, arriving on the very day Hurricane Betsy hit NOLA. Parents threw us out of cars in front of our un-air-conditioned dorm, hurrying back north to avoid the storm that would change many lives. For us incoming freshman, it was An Adventure, and the bonds we made that first week --- without electricity, with orientation cancelled, with the city in ruins --- was a form of boot camp. My time at Newcomb revealed a world larger than my hometown, and those years in NOLA --- including marriage and a baby (now 43 years old, please) --- changed my life’s trajectory forever. You, my freshman “sisters,” will always remain my closest friends, whether you know it or not, whether I say it or not. There, I’ve said it.
My “grown-up” life (starting around age 30, I was slow) is something I could never have imagined in the Sixties when you knew me. I am not the person you knew then, and I could and maybe should apologize, a la 12-step programs, for who I was then: not deep, not honest, not all sorts of things that Life, my life, has led me to be. I hope we will continue to stay in touch, no matter our politics or values, so that our big moments --- illnesses, transitions and deaths --- will not be quite so stunning.
For me, Newcomb was a “coming out,” an evolution from a limited world-view to an awareness of life’s possibilities. Along the way, I have acknowledged and regretted my faults and “sins” and hope you all know that I eventually outgrew them and into the right way of life --- simple, quiet, solitary, art-based --- that I plan to lead until it is my turn to Not Be.
Marietta, I hope there is a heaven. I hope it is full of friends who share stories and memories and experiences --- like those from Newcomb, 1965-1969 --- that made a difference in how we saw the world and its possibilities. If there is a heaven for me, Marietta will be there with her smile. Her Facebook photo is the Marietta I remember: happy, energetic, and positive. She had a much-loved daughter and many, many students whose lives she apparently affected. It is a half-year late, but I want to share my love for her. She had, she was one of those personalities that invites love. What could be a better memorial?
Marietta, this is my message to you: you went too soon. If I’d known earlier, I’d have done what I’m doing today, watching the water come and go in front of that boundless horizon. I wish your spirit to go on and on, like the sea, mingling Being and Not Being, the eternal Now, with us or without us. Today I will watch the tide come and go, and I will order a margarita.
Suddenly. Peacefully. At home. Marietta, this one is for you.
