Path of Totality

Two years ago

David died on a Wednesday, August 12. Since David donated his body to the U Mass Med School in Worcester, we made no immediate plans for his burial: his body might be in Worcester for up to two years. With no body, we could have no wake and needed no funeral home, so we had visiting hours at our home Sunday afternoon and a funeral at our church that evening. I was deeply touched by all the family and friends who came to mourn with us.

The next morning, Monday, we packed up and left for our annual Summer Retreat with our kids in the Catskill Mountains in New York. Several months before, we had rented the house with the understanding that we might not be able to use the house if David couldn't travel. Sadly, , we were free to spend the week away from home.

So we spent the first full week after David’s death together in the beautiful Catskills. With all my focus on David for the previous 17 months, I hadn’t planned for the Summer Retreat: I couldn’t predict whether or not we’d actually go. Five days after his death, looking through a picture-window at an idyllic view of meadow and hills, I began a schedule of who would be around for each meal. Days of the week across the top of the paper, a column of names at the side: Jim, Mary, R’el, Peter, Matt--------I plunged into the chasm between Matt and Annie, where David’s name had always been. For 24 years, six was the salient number: six seatbelts, six Christmas stockings, six colored tumblers at the table, (a different color for each child: David’s was a beautiful blue). Suddenly I plummeted into a world of fives. I felt like I’d fall forever.

American Solar Eclipse 2017

Last February, our friend, Lee, told us about the August total solar eclipse. After 40 years, he could still vividly describe the previous solar eclipse he had witnessed. Inspired by his fervor, Jim searched online and rented the last house in Island Park, Idaho, near the path of totality. His cousin, Laura, graciously agreed to host us for the day in Rexburg, Idaho, so we could be in the path of totality. The eclipse coincided with our Summer Retreat, and we all were able to meet in Idaho.

I can state emphatically that being in the path of totality was totally worth the effort. As we watched (with our approved solar eclipse glasses) all the gradations from 1% to 99% of totality, we could see that the difference between 99% and 100% is “like the difference between day and night, literally. It’s like turning a light on and off. There’s no in-between. Either you’re in the path of totality or you’re not.” (nationaleclipse.wordpress.com) As CNN reported, "Even at 99% obscuration, the Sun is still 10,000 times brighter than it would be during totality!"

And what was the difference? The intense view of the sun’s corona blooming out of the pitch-black moon, the dark blue dome of the sky, the horizon still light, like a gentle sunset surrounding us in every direction.

Moon surrounded by the sun's corona (R'el Rodriguez)

I’d heard that the animals and birds in the area would go crazy during the sudden change from day to night. As we experienced totality, we whooped and screamed, mocking ourselves with shouts of: “The animals are going crazy!”

After the eclipse, we drove to Shelley (2 ¼ hours to drive 40 miles in post-eclipse traffic) to visit with Jim’s mom and other relatives. Aunt Arlene is an especial favorite of mine. We share a common bond: her son, Doug, died at age 24 in a horseback riding accident. A very different loss: Doug was riding alone in the wilderness and was missing for days before his body was found. Doug died fifteen years ago, so Peter and Arlene are further along in their bereavement, but it’s still a very tender topic: you never get over it.

And as I reflect on the peak experience of the solar eclipse totality, I feel a twinge of survivor’s guilt, that I’m intensely alive and David is dead. Am I less of a mother to feel such powerful joy? It’s a rhetorical question, but an emotional-charged one. Intellectually I realize I’m not heartless to enjoy my life to the fullness. But there’s a piece of my heart that hurts when I realize I’m not thinking of David constantly.