Mahler and grief...

I just returned from a trip to New York, where I went to a performance of Mahler’s 2^nd Symphony (The Resurrection Symphony) at Riverside church in Harlem.

It was a reunion of sorts, as my stepfather and both of my brothers and their wives were there. There were also many family friends.

This part of my personal universe revolved to a great extent around my mother, who died of liver cancer four years ago. This made our reunion a time of both joy and sadness for all of us.

Those of you who know the symphony will know the music is beautiful and transcendent. Mahler’s themes of death and resurrection, loss and questions of faith are so deeply suited to holy week and springtime. The group of us who shared a common loss gathered together. Memory was our constant yet unspoken companion, a melancholy and beautiful undercurrent.

Beautiful because my mother died, as is often said and rarely experienced, “with dignity.” Due to her diabetes, she had been preparing herself and all of us for the fact of her passing for many years. She died quietly at home, surrounded by loved ones, at the time and place of her choosing, and in the kind care of Dan my stepfather and an amazing hospice team.

I realized that for many of her friends I was a gentle reminder of the loss. My face carries the contours of hers in a way that those of my brother’s, who favor their father more strongly, does not.

I was escorting a family friend to the church. As I stepped out of the elevator to meet her in the lobby, she commented on how much I look like my mother. After that she remained still – savoring the fleeting moment of resurrection.

At the church, swept along in the strains of the Mahler's music, I saw one after another of us lost in memory.

As the symphony lilted and crashed through the church, I sensed a nearly sanctified energy of loss and rememberance among our guests.

I wandered the valley of doubt as I observed my youngest brother Adam weeping deeply. Something in Adam’s gentle nature makes him the most profoundly marked by loss. Who creates a world with this much pain?

The music reached its glorious crescendo; Mahler’s strangely coherent cacophony of faith overcoming darkness. I felt a a gentle awareness growing.

The reminder I provided to our guests of my mother’s face wasn’t just for them. Running my hand across my check I had an inner realization - she is in me, and always will be.

We left the church, sweeping into the soft April night in near silence. Each one of us had been moved by something more graceful than a piece of music.