How Can I Keep From Singing?

The wife of a college friend passed away at age 51, so last weekend most of my old, small "circle" of a half dozen or so traveled from various points along the Mid-Atlantic to bear witness at her memorial service outside Boston. I'd only met her once, at a college reunion nine years ago (she didn't go to our school; she and her husband met years later), but a better angel of my sometimes reluctant nature prevailed, reminding me that intimate acquaintance with the deceased isn't required and  funerals are for the living.

It was billed as a memorial "salon," at which loved ones could speak, read, sing about whatever inspired them. It went on more than two hours, and there were some lovely moments. The Quaker hymn "My Life Flows on in Endless Song" (which I know as "How Can I Keep From Singing?," by Judy Collins and Enya) and "Dona Nobis Pacem" were among the planned portions of the program, sung by those gathered. Someone read the exquisite, heartbreaking, and right poem "Let Evening Come" by Jane Kenyon. There were lots of memories of my friend's wife, proof that stories are truly the components of a life, the breathing blocks from which a human can be recalled and invoked, indeed created—from which we're all created, every day. I never knew her, but after the memorial I had a sense of her.

The only person in my circle who was moved to speak was one who recited, from memory, "The Owl and the Pussycat." I asked if she'd planned to do that and she said, "NO!"

Afterward my group and some others went to our friend's house, the home he'd shared with his wife until her death, and drank beer and wine and listened to a story she had written herself. I had to leave before most of the others because my sister and brother-in-law, who live in the Boston area and with whom I was staying, were taking me out to dinner. (We had also been through a lot recently, and I wanted to honor that.) I felt rushed and inept as I said goodbye to my college friend and his teenage daughter, and then to all my old friends who I don't see often and who had traveled to be there as I had. 

Just before the memorial, I'd squeezed in a brief, half-hour visit with yet another friend (from a different time in my life, grad school) who lives in the area. We'll catch up a bit more this summer in Provincetown, where it turns out she and her family will overlap with D. and me for a day or two. She walked me to the church where the memorial was, and as we said goodbye, I heard myself say "I love you." I sign my letters to close friends "love" and "xo," but I don't think I've ever said "I love you" to a platonic friend in my life (which might come as a surprise to the friend I said it to, but it's true). The words just tumbled out. I meant them, but they were also on the surface that day looking for someone to receive them. It was that kind of day.