Friday, June 22, 2007 at 2:02am
The day of the endless abyss
Column: Interesting Times
I turn out the castle courtyard and into the allee, trees lining the road as far as I can see. The gold late afternoon Swedish sun bathes my face, and I take my first full breath of effortless air since Tom, my son, was murdered two months earlier — August 6, 1990.
"You have to go out, "Torgils said. "Really, you cannot stay inside any longer." He persisted. "Get a jacket and go out. Walk."
I am wearing my fur vest, the one I had made from the coat bought at Birger Christiansen in Copenhagen 15 years earlier when Tom and I had first come to Scandinavia. Familiar and loose, it does not hang on me like needles, as all clothes have since Tom's death. Now I feel the transparent rays of the sun, see them as they drop to the road and continue on into the earth. The leaves of the trees wave from an unseen wind. The road is straight ahead of me. I cannot see the place where I know that it turns into the forest and the crossroads to Elskastuna. The lake is on my right, and sparkled reflections hover above the water. I am here and no place else.
A month ago I was standing in the kitchen of the house on 99th Street in New York City, holding myself up by one hand pressed against the counter when Catherine called.
"Dearest, how are you?"
What did I say? It has slipped away, but I may have mentioned that the house had been broken into, that nothing was taken but that signs of the forced entry, papers tossed about from the desk, the toilet seat left up, were evident all through the house.
"Why don't you come over and stay with us?" I hear her say.
I remember saying something about "things to do" when Torgils picked up the phone.
"We insist. Come now. Here is Catherine again."
"Darling, go to the airport. I will call SAS now. Your ticket will be at the counter. You have five hours to pack, get a taxi and get to the airport."
I am in no shape to argue, demur, and stand on ceremony.
"One favor, dear? Pick up as many of the latest magazines as you can?"
Notorious for traveling around the world with only one small bag, upstairs I pack a few cashmere sweaters, jeans, shirts, my black velvet ball gown, a long taffeta skirt. I do not want to embarrass Catherine by not having dinner clothes. Downstairs in the blue chair by the fireplace in the kitchen I make a few last phone calls.
Wilhelmina says, "If I were you, I would sit and look at the mountains."
"There are no mountains where I am going in Sweden."
"Just look at the mountains," she says, transcending my intended physical geography with the authority of 80 years immersed in metaphysics.
Tina, in the basement apartment, agrees to keep an eye on the house and be alert for sounds.
I buy a dozen magazines at the Newark newsstand by the SAS gate. In two plastic bags they weigh more than my one suitcase. There are only a few passengers in Euro class, and I scrunch in my bulkhead seat and toss and turn on the six-hour flight to Stockholm.
Just a month before, August 7, the day I flew from Minneapolis to New York, was the day I learned there is no earth beneath my feet. There is no bottom that day, no end to the abyss. For 50 years our families have spent summers at the lake, and it is at the cabin there on the beach at Lake Lougee that the phone call came that Tom was dead.
How could it be that he was dead? I had seen him four days earlier. Talked to him the next day, phoning as we kept mutual track of Saddam Hussein's pending invasion of Kuwait. We had been at temple together the Friday before — me at my Hebrew class and he volunteering at the homeless shelter there — and had stood together as the text was read from the bimah: The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth (Psalm 97:5). Tom leaned over and whispered, "Now there is a God you gotta love."
It's Tom's birthday this week. The Bible lesson of the week includes that verse from Psalms. There are things too deep to understand. But in this column next week I continue the journey.
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is a three-time winner of the Religion in Media Award for her syndicated column on religion and is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Lynne Bundesen.
"You have to go out, "Torgils said. "Really, you cannot stay inside any longer." He persisted. "Get a jacket and go out. Walk."
I am wearing my fur vest, the one I had made from the coat bought at Birger Christiansen in Copenhagen 15 years earlier when Tom and I had first come to Scandinavia. Familiar and loose, it does not hang on me like needles, as all clothes have since Tom's death. Now I feel the transparent rays of the sun, see them as they drop to the road and continue on into the earth. The leaves of the trees wave from an unseen wind. The road is straight ahead of me. I cannot see the place where I know that it turns into the forest and the crossroads to Elskastuna. The lake is on my right, and sparkled reflections hover above the water. I am here and no place else.
A month ago I was standing in the kitchen of the house on 99th Street in New York City, holding myself up by one hand pressed against the counter when Catherine called.
"Dearest, how are you?"
What did I say? It has slipped away, but I may have mentioned that the house had been broken into, that nothing was taken but that signs of the forced entry, papers tossed about from the desk, the toilet seat left up, were evident all through the house.
"Why don't you come over and stay with us?" I hear her say.
I remember saying something about "things to do" when Torgils picked up the phone.
"We insist. Come now. Here is Catherine again."
"Darling, go to the airport. I will call SAS now. Your ticket will be at the counter. You have five hours to pack, get a taxi and get to the airport."
I am in no shape to argue, demur, and stand on ceremony.
"One favor, dear? Pick up as many of the latest magazines as you can?"
Notorious for traveling around the world with only one small bag, upstairs I pack a few cashmere sweaters, jeans, shirts, my black velvet ball gown, a long taffeta skirt. I do not want to embarrass Catherine by not having dinner clothes. Downstairs in the blue chair by the fireplace in the kitchen I make a few last phone calls.
Wilhelmina says, "If I were you, I would sit and look at the mountains."
"There are no mountains where I am going in Sweden."
"Just look at the mountains," she says, transcending my intended physical geography with the authority of 80 years immersed in metaphysics.
Tina, in the basement apartment, agrees to keep an eye on the house and be alert for sounds.
I buy a dozen magazines at the Newark newsstand by the SAS gate. In two plastic bags they weigh more than my one suitcase. There are only a few passengers in Euro class, and I scrunch in my bulkhead seat and toss and turn on the six-hour flight to Stockholm.
Just a month before, August 7, the day I flew from Minneapolis to New York, was the day I learned there is no earth beneath my feet. There is no bottom that day, no end to the abyss. For 50 years our families have spent summers at the lake, and it is at the cabin there on the beach at Lake Lougee that the phone call came that Tom was dead.
How could it be that he was dead? I had seen him four days earlier. Talked to him the next day, phoning as we kept mutual track of Saddam Hussein's pending invasion of Kuwait. We had been at temple together the Friday before — me at my Hebrew class and he volunteering at the homeless shelter there — and had stood together as the text was read from the bimah: The hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth (Psalm 97:5). Tom leaned over and whispered, "Now there is a God you gotta love."
It's Tom's birthday this week. The Bible lesson of the week includes that verse from Psalms. There are things too deep to understand. But in this column next week I continue the journey.
— — —
Lynne Bundesen is the author of five books on religion and was adjunct professor at the Boston Theological Institute under a Templeton Science and Religion Grant. She is a three-time winner of the Religion in Media Award for her syndicated column on religion and is currently the spiritual expert for the physical and spiritual health website of Dr. Andrew Weil. Her email address is {email lynnebundesen@hotmail.com}lynnebundesen@hotmail.com{/email}. © copyright 2007 by Lynne Bundesen.