As They Lay Dying - Part One

 As They Lay Dying

    Recently I entered a small post asking about William Faulkner as a great writer. I have had a hard time liking his art, his literature. Perhaps I did not try hard enough. Or, perhaps I did not try to understand his work enough? (question mark added). I read a few views online of why he is so masterful as an author, storyteller, a large figure in literature. Why his books are so good. I suppose he is a large fixture in Americana, in our culture. Greater than most. Outside the United States Faulkner has been translated and has a following. He is a luminary in the art world and will go on being a classic reference. Faulkner and his writings may only dim over time, but maybe his art will grow stronger over the long haul of literature and history? I guess it should, and I should read more of his classic tomes. If that is important, which I think it is key for my own mind, soul, understanding, thinking. It might shed light on some things vexing me and others.

    The book that I had to read by him "As I Lay Dying", was told in many points of view by family members of a woman, I think in Mississippi, who had died. I read this book as a new adult in 1989, my senior year of high school, taken at my public school. It counted as a college course. It was a beginning literature class. I always enjoyed good books and reading, but this book flummoxed me. My instructor had already graded me in a writing class the semester prior, which did not go well for me. I scored low. I probably did not put forth enough effort, and also, I did not likely represent my interests nor skills in writing sufficiently for her or myself. An early display of self-disappointment in a true interest. 

    Maybe time and effort can heal some past wounds and deficiencies? Could life and love ever be such!

    

    This was when I was age 17 turning 18, while playing a major role in a school play. I sang a song for my church Road Show that fall, a smaller part as my friend and playwright, the church show director, a friend from childhood, knew that I was busy in my school show, "The King and I". It has always been hard for me to memorize things verbatim. It has probably limited me in many facets, but life was busy enough for my brain back then.

    Back then. The musical accomplished in December, when the local soccer team won the national championship, coinciding exactly with my last performance, I was on to a part time job, and the engagements of college, literature, growing up, working things out. I hope to be doing these things when I am 58, perhaps as a grandfather. My penchant for foreshadowing the possible... Then, now, and then again.

    Back then, 1989, I had gained a new step-mother, who was a native Hoosier of southern Indiana, and a new addition to my life and into my family. My family was a transplant from Massachusetts, more or less. Her family combined with mine; I think that it worked okay, for many years. It only came apart at the seams some 34 years later upon her final sickness and death. This was the last year and half, starting around April 2021; me thinking about it on a holiday weekend over a year after her death. Names do not need to be shared, but it would not be hard to discover the real people involved, alive and dead.

    I wish to write in some abstractions, perhaps understanding more of Faulkner and the world, life and death, in sickness and in health.

    Why Write This?

    

    Trying to wrap my head around Faulkner, As I Lay Dying, and the death of this person, my stepmother. There have been some comparisons and contrasts with the death and life of my own biological mother, who died in 2014. This question has arisen by me and suggested by others. Compare these two mothers. I have written about her, my own mom who raised me and my sisters from infancy. She passed in 2014 at age 73. She was a Kennedy kid, you might say, born in small town Massachusetts, was a nurse in West Africa, a convert to the faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, two time married, retiree missionary to Southeast Asia. A brief synopsis about her. And this is not so much about her. 

    But enough about her. Back to my stepmother, who died at age 83 in 2021. I believe that her life and her passing, the complications or conflagrations of her eventual demise, has more to do with Faulkner and As I Lay Dying than I might have guessed. Mysteries and points of view. As my dad would say, who courted her briefly a year before I read the classic, would marry her and love her for over a third of a century until my time away with the military; she became sicker and sicker and died at home in hospice. What would my dad say? I lost my train of thought. It does bear positing; I think her last 7 or 8 months on earth were really good. Others may disagree. Hence the disparate points of view.

    Faulkner.

    A life really well lived, by all accounts. Many loved her as she deserved. But unfortunately, there grew a miasma or strange and painful disentangled web around her with her passing; surrounding those that most closely knew her and cared for her. They became vicious enemies to each other. The problems remain, this first month of 2023. Going on two years since the original terminal diagnosis of cancer. I will refer to her as Doris. Does Faulkner have any insights or understanding to lend to what has become of this life that ended, a person who was mostly private, devoted, conscientious, a good reader, a careful thinker, and for all intents and purposes, thoughtful and caring? 

    Doris is Gone, while Her Spirit and Life Remain

    Her own words eloquently depicted her cares and hopes, which were read at a large funeral service in her hometown. It was a sunny day in mid-December 2021, at the end time of the worldwide pandemic that we all survived. We did not need to wear our COVID masks for this occasion, a celebration and memorial of Doris' noble life. But the fissures of the family were well established by then. A time of grieving was further embittered by hard feelings and animosity of the survivors: either jealousy, or built-up resentment, petty differences, and I suppose other demons that became unleashed as she, Doris, was in her final months for this mortal run. She, the victim of cancer, lived it out well, I do believe.

    The Parents - I knew the parents of Doris. They were our neighbors as I grew up. They were the kindly old and grey folks a few doors away. These parents were sweet and loving. Thus, my father met their older, divorced daughter, as they were leaving this world, being buried across the slopes and fields of our southern Indiana home. I can say I love them. Obviously, Doris did. So did her children. So did my dad. They were loved and respected by all. Having lived in the far-off county border when younger, bearing their children at home, instead of at the city hospital, they gravitated near the center of the college town in their last years. Thus, the nexus was made.

    The Sister - Doris' sister moved farther north to central Indiana, to the bigger city or its suburbs. The sister, perhaps younger than Doris? (forgive me), was a lifelong friend and sibling to her. They as sisters would talk, get together, and from what I know, were like normal sisters an hour apart. They were good to each other and for each other, from all I can gather. The sister's husband, a nice and friendly man that I got to know and appreciate over the years, passed away suddenly some four or five years ago, I believe. 2018? He was another good relation to Doris, in tandem with the sister. 

    The Aunt - Doris had an elderly aunt, that I will call Beatrice. I got to know her; she was a true Hoosier, in the resting home on the north side of town, rooting heartily for our Hoosier basketball team whenever those events occurred. She lived into her 90s and lived a pretty cool life in my estimation. Sweet and caring, like most people that I knew in the family.

    Other Family - Doris had other family in our town; we would get together for Christmas parties, eat well, share a White Elephant exchange many years, with many laughs and good memories, for me and all, I perceived. I think that all of us enjoyed those times, if we truly remember Christmases past. I do. I cherish the good spirits and family warmth that was felt in those reunions. Family, nieces and nephews, from Indianapolis or Chicago, or North Carolina would come and share in the festivities. It was fun, it was warm, it bespoke of Doris and her loved ones. My father and us were included in the times. Doris was the link.

    So, we were not a Mississippi family in the 1920s, or 1890s, or whenever Faulkner wrote that story, but I do believe each person with their own monologues and dialogs created a picture of what life and death can mean. We were not moving the body of Doris across the landscapes of our home grounds in a cart, or car, or Hearse, (although we did for the burial plot on the west side of town) like the tragic characters of the Faulkner classic, yet all of these people were involved, living and dead, watching, mourning, carrying on, and playing out their parts like the novel depicts.

    This was my start to understanding the scenario. In Part Two, I will go into the closer characters of the mother, wife, grand-mother in question. Maybe Faulkner has a bead on us after all, after all these years. After not liking the book that much.

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  I will print this out in the Internet world, no offenses intended or ill will offered. Simply to get my heart and mind around it more. For me, I bear no grievances to any one personally. I simply observe, somewhat astounded, as the family members drift, or crash, one with another.

As They Lay Dying - Part One