Eulogy for Leah

By Barbara Murphy

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31 years ago on October 25th, Leah and I had our first date,

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… Meeting you was like

Listening to a song for the

First time and knowing it

Would be my favorite.

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- from a poem by Sharon Olds

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and on May 13th of this year, we had our last. Dates are important when trying to portray a single life, or a life together:

 

Margo married October 12, 1997

Jessica married July 12, 2002

Daisy born April 12, 2001

Madelaine born August 11, 2003

Morgan Joy born March 1, 2005.

 

These are all happy times, notice no sad ones. The happy times are the events that soften and enlighten the sharp edges of everyday life. They are the personal monuments to love, hope, and perseverance.

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So, it was such a date on June 30, 2013. It was the occasion of the NYC gay pride parade which was celebrating the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that legalized gay marriage in the United States, and Edie Windsor, the plaintiff in United States v. Windsor, was the Grand Marshall. Leah and I, as we had done so often in the past, planned to be part of this celebration.

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Because of a couple of health issues, we didn’t join the line of march that Sunday, but we were part of the massive crowd who were cheering and waving rainbow flags on the sidewalk as the float carrying Edie passed by us. People jumped high to get a glimpse of Edie, and so did we. And, we both saw Edie as we seemed to float above the throng who chanted, EEE-DDD, EEE-DDD. We landed and hugged each other, smiling through tears and trying to make ourselves heard. I don’t know who said it first, or whether we said it together. But, the first thing we both heard was, “Will you marry me?” Yes, we could, yes we would, and yes we did on September 7, 2013. And, a grand day it was: a double wedding: Leah and Barbara and Leah’s sister Dale and Warren – as Warren called it – 3 Brides and a Groom.

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On another date in 2015, a second Supreme Court case, further solidified the Windsor decision, and speaking for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family…. In forming a marital union two people become something greater than once they were…Marriage embodies the love that endures even past death.”

Another of Sharon Olds’ poems speaks to this love:

 

Love

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Love is a gently caring

A quiet concern

Deeply hidden in the heart.

A presence always felt

Everyday, every minute, every hour.

Love is a gentle embrace

Between body and soul.

A quiet touch of the hand

A soft hug by warm arms

A caress of two souls.

Love is a great passion

Between hungry hearts.

The intimate exchange

Between mind, body and soul.

Love is always caring

Always growing

Always being there.

Love is a wonderful gift

Shared by two blessed souls

Experiencing heaven on Earth.

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Today, I stand before you as the personification of that Supreme Court pronouncement and of Sharon Olds poem. I am listed as Leah’s “Surviving Spouse.”

But, I also stand before you as a welcomed member of Leah’s family. Each day that I see them or speak with them I feel Leah’s breath and hear Leah’s songs –the extension of the love and vitality that was Leah’s grace. How very blessed I am.

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A specific date may define a time, a place, a context, but that just constructs a calendar, a time-line.  During these past weeks since Leah’s passing, I’ve reviewed that time-line. I’ve looked over more than 32 albums, more than a thousand photos taken between 1987 and 2018. None of them was Leah, yet all of them were Leah. I saw her in her glory as she grew through those decades.

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What the photos pointed to was Leah’s curiosity, her nurturing, her creativity, her sense of whimsy, her love… whether:

• Trying to cross-country ski for the first time

• Daring to ride a horse into the high county or riding the rapids in Oregon

• Meditating on the sorrow and mystery of death

• Wondering what would happen to the dogs and cats left behind at Chernobyl and Prypiat

• Listening to and finding universal meaning in the personal story

• Giving birth to two amazing daughters and cradling her three granddaughters

• Encouraging young playwrights and actors

• Joining the line of march for anti-war, anti-nucs, women’s reproductive rights, gay rights

• Daring to take a course in “musical stagecraft” at BMI with kids 40 years her junior

• Running barefoot into the Pacific Ocean surf for the first time in her life

• Studying and acting a small role in a one-time-only performance of Everret Quinton’s satiric comedy Turds in Hell

• Singing her heart out traveling to Fiddlers Grove to hear and breathe in Blue Grass music

• Taking two hours to choose the exact word needed in a line of dialog

• Laughing so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched the comedian Jacques Tati maneuver through traffic in Paris

• Dancing with abandon to Zydeco music at the Rock and Bowl in New Orleans

• Standing silent at the bow of a ship as it sailed into Instanbul Harbor

• Googling SOCCER and LACROSS so she could better understand Maddie and MoJo’s sports

• Beaming as she danced with her granddaughter Daisy at her sweet sixteen party

• Wondering about strange ideas and possibilities that I was so often afraid or embarrassed to consider

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But, what this sampling of photos doesn’t tell is that I loved being both the participant in and recipient of the boundless love and honesty that was Leah. No one has encouraged me to dream big, to laugh loudly, to seek the truth, to love unconditionally as much as the love of my life, my best friend, my wife – Leah Rose Napolin.

 

For over two decades, every other year, Leah and I would spend four days doing nothing else but listening to poetry at the Dodge Poetry Festival. This nothing else was everything to Leah:

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Exaltation     words “ intimations of immortality”  silence rapture

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And in that spirit, I’d like to read an excerpt from the final entry in Leah’s memoir titled JOINED:

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…Twenty-sixth day of May, Fiddlers Grove

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Here at Fiddlers Grove I pursue my secret career as a voyeur of happiness.  Along with the consolation of music, this is the other great satisfaction I find, to come here and observe it.  Mothers resting on blankets with children sprawled over them, like cubs; mothers and fathers feeding the children morsels of food from picnic hampers, children kissing the mouths of their mothers, riding their father's shoulders, being rocked in their father's arms.  Joined for this brief, this transitory moment in time when we each have, held fast in the heart, our perfect objects of desire.

I talk with two friends, Robin, the master fiddler, and Margery, the novice guitarist from New Hampshire.  Margery says in wonderment that it's like a parallel universe, only a better one than ours. To drop out of time for a while into this place and be pleasured by song, eased of care.  I'm struck by her notion, and think of the Runner. Is he from this parallel universe, too?

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…Twenty-Seventh Day of May

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…Fiddler's Grove …Sunday [morning], a young man held the stage for what seemed to be one timeless moment.  Sweetly, he coaxed a melody from his harmonica. Buoyantly, he strummed his guitar. As sunlight dappled the leaves and a mild breeze blew across our upturned faces, he leaned into the microphone and sang of loss and hope, in a song he wrote that went like this:

 

"Love lives on

Love lives on

Even  when

The heartbeat's gone

It won't rust

Or turn to stone

Life may end

But love lives on—"

 

And I thought to myself:  Yes, time to let go.  

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But keep.  

Keep the.  

Keep the music.

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And on this date, I say to the love of my life, “Sleep now, sweet Leah, and flights of angels sing you to your rest.”