Losing People Part 3

 

On a hot August evening my housemate and I were stoop sitting on the stairs of our Wigglesworth Street Boston town house. The houses built in the early 1900s were originally owned by Irish families, some of whom still owned them. The other occupants were students.

It was still too early for the street to be filled with yellow U-Haul trucks as students moved in. They would study at the many surrounding universities in walking distance: Harvard Medical, Harvard Dental, Wentworth, Mass College of Art, Simmons and Northeastern. One U-Haul did pull up. A man in his sixties and a woman in her forties pulled up and began unloading wooden box after wooden box of books.

My housemate and I said in unison, "We have to get to know them."

Dan and Barbara were both anthropology professors at local universities. It began a friendship of shared interests including our in-depth research into the French Cathars. In fact we did separate trips to explore.

We decided we would love to live in France and bought a house together in Argelès-sur-mer, France. Then Barbara went to Burkina Faso to continue her research into the Lobi tribe. The couple's marriage didn't survive, not for lack of love but, the places they occupied in life were too different. Dan was ready to retire:Barbara was just getting started.

I adore them both for their NOT making me decide who was right and wrong. 

There was a point where Barbara and I had a condo in a Mission Hill triple decker. During that period and at different times, Barbara's friends, my daughter, the abused mother of one of my daughter's friends and my former Yugoslavian exchange student were living with us. It was wonderful.

My mother was dying of cancer. She had been great when I was growing up, but as an adult she became an enemy trying to annul my then marriage and take custody of my daughter. I found out about the cancer when I was living in France and moved back to Boston to see her through the end of her live. I lived in my condo of the triple decker over Barbara's. The two places were really like one apartment.

Barbara went with me for moral support the first time I would encounter my mother. Just as I was about to knock on her door, Barbara grabbed my hand. "What's her real name. I only know her as UB." (Ugly Bitch our code for my mother) "I can't say, 'you be Donna-Lane's mother.'"

"Dorothy."

Over the months when my mother was dying we'd role play conversations with my mother. Unfortunately, my mother never had the same script, but it allowed me to say things that I should not have kept inside. 

A few months after my mother died and I was complaining about my mother yet again, Barbara said, "Look, your mother didn't ruin your life. You are stronger because or in spite of her." That sentence allowed me to start healing.

When I moved to Switzerland for work, Barbara set up a business in Argelès including a shop that sold clothes she made, African Art, used books. She began a toothpaste company. 

Although I no longer owned a house with her in Argelès (ASM), I'd bought my Nest, a studio in an attic two blocks away. I divided my time between Geneva and Argelès. Barbara and I shared meals, political discussions, local history, movies, books, conversations, explorations of the region, and life. I would cover for her in the store.  

She joined the local Gospel group and attending their concerts were fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHoFdwvrpEY

When Rick came back into my life, Barbara had her doubts, but they became friends. She made my wedding dress.

Barbara died the way she had lived, on her own terms. During a routine doctor's appointment, she told a joke and dropped dead. The village mourned the Grande Americaine but not as much as I did and do even a decade later. So many times I want to talk with her. Walking by her house, I feel I should be going in to share whatever leftovers we had.

Rick put together a video celebrating her life. The rich voice of Alain Martin, the director of the Argelès Gospel Singers, sang It's a Wonderful World in the background.  www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbinVnDFBd0

My friendship with Barbara made the world more wonderful. Grief fights with celebration for all that we did after I watched that U-Haul truck pull up on that hot August night.