Loss

My graduate advisor is the sharpest woman I know. I met her first when as an undergraduate when she and our most famous faculty member came to an English class I was in to tell us about a new undergraduate minor they were introducing called media ecology. At that moment I knew it was my field. It was popular culture with a twist, saving the whales and bringing them cable TV, culture and technology interacting as an ecology, McLuhan as an academic program. Odd that the farther out I get from it the less I feel I understand it as a field…or even what a field is. My colleagues in the academic organization we’ve formed are so certain about who we are. I am still just interested in studying culture and symbols.

I took absolutely every class I could with Chris – undergrad classes, MA classes, and then PhD classes. By the time she was finished with me, she knew me. I could never quite tell if she liked me – although I suspect she did – but I was completely in her thrall. She was the smartest women I knew.

After I completed my final degree I went off to another city and did not keep in touch. I am a bad keeper in touch. Not because I don’t want to – I’m loyal as a cocker spaniel and try to keep all my friends close – but because I’m terrible at taking that initiative. I wasn’t sure she’d want to and I’m bad at it – a faulty combo for keeping in touch. I sent her a card when her sister (to whom she was very close) died. I saw her at the occasional conference. She is a solitary individual, not keeping many friends and I didn’t want to presume upon her big brain.

I was surprised when she retired about eight years ago. ‘Twas after that famous guy died (I sat with her at his funeral) and she seemed done with the place after he was no longer her confidant.

Then about a year ago I heard she had lung cancer. I still resisted calling – I didn’t want to be morbid and I wanted to assume she’d recover. But it became clear she would not and I sent her a card asking if we could get together. Boy, did I want to see her again. She’s the sharpest woman I know.

I met her for lunch twice and heard many bits about her life that said we were friends. I was happy to feel her embrace, and devastated I’d not gotten in touch before this. I was on my way for a third lunch but the day before it was to happen she moved a thousand miles away. She left to live out the rest of her life closer to her relatives (though she’d never actually lived there), in a place where she owned a home (though she’d never lived there), where she had a larger space for someone to come take care of her. She told me she wasn’t afraid to die. But I am afraid for her to die. I will miss not having been closer to her. I will miss getting more stories from her. I will miss having her in the world.

I want to call but I’m afraid. What will I say, how will be conduct a phone conversation across a thousand miles when she may be fading and we have only talked a few times over the last many years? How can I reconnect with someone at their very end – I don’t want to be doing it just for my own satisfaction. Every day I try to screw up my courage to call. Maybe tomorrow.