St. Davids

I’ve always loved the name of St. Davids in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania (outside of Philly). When my parents and sister came for my graduation from Bryn Mawr, they stayed at St. Davids Inn. Many of the original European settlers were Welsh and they named their church for the patron saint of Wales.

I suppose that’s why the tears sprang to my eyes as I drove past the Battlegreen in Lexington a few hours ago listening to “Ar Hyd y Nos” (“All Through the Night”), the Welsh lullaby we’d just sung as a women’s chorus at church. It’s another Christmas season and my David won’t be visiting.

I find I’ve developed different approaches to talking about my children to newly-met friends. I remember flying west a few months after David’s death. I didn’t mention my children; I had no interest in the role of the mourning mother. Then there was the phase where I’d describe my kids in a way to obfuscate their numbers: “We’ve got a few in New York, one in Massachusetts, and the rest are out west.” But sometime in the last year, I’ve wanted to talk about David. I want to remember him and let new friends know about him, about his existence in our lives.

Sometimes I hesitate, concerned that the other person, hearing about David’s death for the first time, suffers more in hearing than I do in telling. I talk about David without anguish, but I don’t want to cause distress. Do I also worry that I seem heartless and unfeeling in my delivery?

I had lunch with my good friend, Christy, the other day, and I talked about David. She asked if it was painful, talking about him. No, it’s not. In fact, I want to talk about him, keep his memory alive.

Five days after David’s death, we all packed up and went to a rented house in the Catskills. We’d planned our reunion for the customary third week in August, but didn’t know whether or not we’d use the house, since David was so sick. But he died and we used the trip as a time to be together for a week in new surroundings.

As I sat at the kitchen table, looking out a large picture window towards a forested hill, I made a chart for meal planning. Jim, Mary, R’el, Peter, Matt… A bottomless chasm gaped before me, and I struggled to keep from plummeting. For nearly twenty-six years, David had always been between Matt and Annie. I skirted that chasm, with varying success for a long time. Then I discovered I could switch the order of Annie and Sam, but was always distracted from the conversation, nervously counting and re-counting in my head, feeling that I was missing someone. The other day I used my five fingers to count my kids and and wondered that it took over four years to discover the method. But my heart resists fitting my children on one hand. I rebel. I have six children. I always will.