Phyllis

 A Eulogy September 15, 2001 

 My mother crossed over on the 9th of September at age 87, in her sleep, in her own bed, in her own beloved house. 

 It was, particularly in light  of the unspeakable awfulness that visited our country two days later, a blissful way to leave this earth. But as grateful as I am for her longevity, as joyful as I am about the richness of the life she lived, as thankful as I am for the ease of her crossing, there is another part of me, a very large part, that cannot fathom a world without Phyllis Hogan there to help make sense of it.

When the calamity came to New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, there was part of me that thought, "I am so glad that my mother isn't here to see this." But there was another part, a very large part, that desperately needed to hear what she had to say.

It was not in Phyllis Hogan's vocabulary, it was not in the remotest corner of her being, to say, “Let’s grease the Taliban!” 

I think she would have said, "It makes me think of the last lines of Dover Beach." And then she would have quoted the last lines of Matthew Arnold's vision of a world in chaos:

And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by night.


Of course, it’s also possible that she would have sat there in her red sweater, shrugged her shoulders, and said, as she said so many times when something was  truly mystifying:  “I don't know, you know.”

But I do believe she would have reached for Mathew Arnold, or someone of like wisdom, because my mother loved poetry. My mother felt about poetry the way  many people feel about religion. She went there for solace, for meaning. She quoted lines of poetry out of the blue that somehow always perfectly befitted the occasion at hand.  There's a story my father often told about the time he was courting her. They went for a walk in Berkeley, and Phyllis started reciting "The Highwayman,"  by Alfred Noyse. It has the refrain, "And the Highwayman came riding, riding, riding up to the old inn door. "

There are many, many verses to that poem. And each time she finished a stanza and uttered the refrain, Bill Hogan said, "That was lovely." But she kept going. She recited every single verse  as they traipsed around North Berkeley. And at one point, my father thought, "My god - I don't think there's anything to do here but to marry this woman."

One night in the last few months of her life, I was talking to my mother on the phone. There was a pause. I guess I wasn't sure if we were ending the conversation, so I said, “Well, here we are on a darkling plain …”

And she said, in that tiny sound that had become her voice those last few months: “Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.” 
My family was dealt a double blow this week, and handed the double task, of grieving, most deeply, for the victims of the unspeakable awfulness, and for our country, my God, for our country—at the same time that we were grieving, most deeply, for Phyllis. Through the unspeakableness I found myself wondering what Phyllis Hogan would have said, how she would have comforted us, in our grief at losing her. I think what she would say is:  "Honey, you know that passage from Emerson. "And then she would have quoted from Emerson's essay  “The Oversoul:” 

"The heart in thee is the heart of all. Not a valve, not a wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly, an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and truly its tide is One."

Because my mother was a true Transcendentalist, an Emersonian, a seeker. She read about and believed in the wisdom of all religions and spiritual practices. She dabbled in Buddhism and Hinduism and borrowed from them for her life journey. She went through an I Ching stage --  I now wear her I Ching charms. She loved the ancient deep of Judaism. She saw the great wisdom that is reachable through the timeless stories of Christianity. And yes, saw the beauty of Islam. I treasure the gold-framed Islamic prayer she gave me years ago, an artifact from her own childhood, that ends with the line,  “The Peace of Allah be with you.” 

 When my mother and father were married in 1948 in London, their favorite city, they received telegrams from their friends back home wishing them well, and there is one in particular, from an army friend of my father's, that I always loved. It said:  "Only bachelor left. Stop. You did great. Stop. Find me another Phyllis. Stop."

      You know what? There isn't another Phyllis. There never was, and never will be. 
       Many many years ago a boyfriend of mine had a difficult loss, not of a person, but of a beloved guitar, that was stolen by a hitchhiker had picked up in those days when people trusted the world enough to pick up hitch hikers. My friend was devastated.  I was devastated for him.  My mother said, "Honey, I know you feel bad, but in times like this, you should remember what Emerson said --  ‘Nothing is lost in the Universe.’”  You know what, Mom? I believe that. And I thank you for that. You are in the universe, and not lost. But I will still miss you terribly.