Philadelphia Brigade Brightens My Grief

Sisters Kate & Alex Tasch arrive in Maastricht on Friday, May 9, 2008, bringing their special brand of comfort, care and fun!

Busted? No. Great friend Maurice Schoffelen isn't locking the girls up, but merely offering his back of the van transport as Alex and Kate head to our friend Jacqueline Braun's bed & breakfast located a tad too far for walking from our home in Centre Ceramique. We've decided it is best for our guests not to stay with us at this time to preserve the most peace and quiet for Martijn and me.

On Saturday, May 10th, Martijn accepted an invitation to spend a few hours at his mother's cabin located 20 minutes away in Lanaken, Belgium by car. Maurice thought it would be nice to show K&A nearby Valkenburg, Limberg's equivalent of New Jersey's Wildwood. Very touristy. We walked the town, viewed the ruins, rode the ski lift to the tower on the hill and ate fattening 'biter balen" the local answer to Philly cheesesteaks. Heavy on calories and taste!

Alex, Maurice and Kate pick up sticks on a short hike through Valkenburg's woods. Total twiggies.

When Kate and Alex wrote that they would like to visit Martijn and me I felt overwhelmed with gratitude. You see, the Tasch family was my first 'official' adopted family. Their father, Peter, became my first 'real' employer in 1969, when, as a work-study student at Temple University I became the Office Administrator for the scholarly journal, The Scriblerian, which Peter edited and managed with two other colleagues. I worked for Peter for three years, during which time his wife, Alison, who also taught in Temple's English department where I was a student, and their three children, Jeremy, Kate and Alex, became my first 'family' of choice. It is a relationship I've maintained and cherished over the past 40 years. In fact, when I ran my Philadelphia Public Relations Firm, Ingram & Picker, Alex became one of our first intern's, making the cycle full.

Their visit opened a window of my soul letting some light into the darkness that currently dwells there. My grief of late has lodged deep and wide. Even as Martijn proves his mettle by his heroic ability to tough out his pain and keep up his overwhelming good humour, even as he labors to do the small things for himself he is able to do, I mourn my upcoming loss. Just this determination, just this magic display of character, though also intended to help me in my daily routines by keeping independent as long as he can, seems to intensify my impending sense of loss. I WILL MISS MARTIJN ENTIRELY BECAUSE OF HIS SPIRIT. While I know the 'ruling' zen wisdom is to accept each day we still have and to cherish it, I admit to you that I mostly dwell in deep despair at my own sense of loss. And, I am not ashamed nor remorseful about this. It is what I feel. I am neither wallowing in sadness nor looking for sympathy - only marking my own reality to share with you.

Mostly when I'm with Martijn, I do not feel this despair. It is only when I'm alone - when he's sleeping or resting upstairs or I'm in the shower or washing up dishes. Also, when I'm out and about Maastricht. Maastricht is Martijn for me. 

So, it was with supreme gratitude that I found being out and about with Kate and Alex, along with our dear steady 'tour guide' Maurice, that I felt lighter for the first time in a long while. Sharing our long and mutual Philadelphia-based history was a panacea for my ills. Identifying landmarks like the Wissahickon Trail in the Germantown section of Philly where we were neighbors for many years, or sharing snatches of history like the big English Department parties hosted by their parents in my carefree student days, filled me with a sweet succor of long term friendship. We didn't run out of stories or reminiscences during the entire weekend of their visit. And the icing on the cake was spending Mother's Day with two young women who feel like my own daughters.

There is much more to tell about Kate and Alex and the wonderful Tasch family. Like Kate's own role as caretaker for her partner, Michele during her frightening bouts with leukemia, or Alex's recent scare with a burst appendix, or the time Martijn and I stayed in a funny, funky Manhattan apartment of Alex's former boss, or the huge party hosted by Peter and Alison for me when Temple University honored me with a distinguish humanities award, or Peter an Alison's current struggle with the Parkinson's disease that is ravaging their lives. So much history and so much love.

So, I have found a lasting 'afterburn' from their visit that is helping me back on track to enjoy Martijn's enduring love and company now. What a great gift.