Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Speaker for the Dead
Today I received a letter from a dead man.
This week has been packed to the brim with deadlines, including multiple job applications, a recommendation letter, a conference abstract, and an article submission, so I was eager to get an early start on the day. When I arrived at the office, the lights were still off in the halls, but that was no problem. After all, it meant that for a short while I had the place to myself.
Taking full advantage of the lack of foot traffic in the early morning hours, I decided to print out some articles I had been meaning to read. While waiting for the final pages, I happened to glance at my office mailbox, which is located on the opposite wall. And there it lay: a thin, white and blue envelope marked priority mail. A glance at the return address confirmed what I realized had to be the case. There could be only one sender and he had passed away the day before.
I had only met him on three occasions, though our correspondence extended over several months. Our interactions began with a note from my advisor suggesting that the organization where I work might wish to contact this gentleman to ascertain whether he wished to preserve any materials from his long and rather distinguished scientific career. Upon sending out a preliminary e-mail inquiry, I learned that he had already been in touch with both our archives and oral history program and remained enthusiastic about the prospect of contributing papers and an interview to our collections. His case had slipped through the cracks, but my advisor's e-mail had mentioned that it might be worth picking it up again...and soon. Because the man in question was sick and getting sicker.
During my first visit to his assisted living community, he explained the situation in greater detail. Without getting into too much detail, it is enough to say that he had a severe chronic condition that caused fatigue and susceptibility to infection. The doctors weren't sure how long his illness would be manageable, but it was for the time being and so we decided to make the most of it by beginning an oral history. At first, he was surprised to learn that people might be interested in his life, rather than the famous people he encountered during the course of his career. At times I had to actively remind him that his life was interesting in and of itself and not to worry so much about remembering every detail exactly. After all, these types of interviews are intended to capture information that might be preserved in written records---the intangible emotions, the half-remembered conversations, the laughter and tears of a life well-lived.
Indeed, over the course of our conversations, it became overwhelmingly evident that this man had led a full life. Though the majority of my questions focused on his professional accomplishments, which were considerable, he was arguably more proud of the friendships and working relationships he had established along the way. He expressed equal pride in his own achievements as those of his family, and throughout our conversations it was clear he loved his wife and children deeply.
Our conversations spanned the course of three days. On the first occasion, he was quite vibrant. We walked together to the dining hall of his assisted living community, where everyone seemed to know him, even volunteers from the community opera company taking a break from rehearsal. Due to scheduling conflicts, our next conversation came about a month later. By that time, his health had deteriorated somewhat, but he fought through whatever pain and fatigue he was suffering to get through the interview.
That was on a Thursday. The following Monday, I received word that he had been admitted to the hospital. His condition had gotten worse and the doctors were saying he had anywhere between weeks and months to live. If we were going to finish the oral history, it had to be soon. The next morning, I drove to the hospital expecting to see him lying in bed. Instead, I found him walking in the hallway. After greeting me, we settled in for an hour and a half long interview, followed by meetings with doctors (while I stood in the hallway), lunch, and a drive back to his apartment. We ended up talking, with sporadic interruptions for telephone calls, home health aide visits, and dinner, until approximately 10:30 that evening. By the end, we were both exhausted but we had finished. After loading up some additional books and papers from his office into the trunk of my car, we said our goodbyes.
Except for a brief phone call the following day to let him know that our three interviews had been sent out for transcription, that was the last time we spoke. I had anticipated having a few more weeks to work with him on editing the interview, but over the weekend he succumbed to another infection. Yesterday afternoon, I received word that he had died. The news hit me harder than I would have expected given the brevity of our acquaintance. On the other hand, I had spent more than twelve hours total listening to his life story. Half a day of my life was solely dedicated to learning about the eighty plus years of his. Given the emotional intensity of the conversations, conducted with full knowledge that there might never be another opportunity to answer these questions, perhaps my reaction is more understandable.
Still, none of that could prepare me for this morning, when I received an honest-to-goodness letter from beyond the grave from my interview subject. Its contents? Two hand-written pages of notes, scrawled in pencil, amending and commenting on points from our interviews. He cared so deeply about making sure that everything was in order with his oral history that he devoted some of the last hours of his life to clarifying its contents. At the top of the first page was a precautionary note written entirely in capital letters, indicating that while he had more to say, he had been receiving lectures, presumably from both family and health care professionals, about the unpredictability of life.
In the end, these notes were all he got to write.
This is not the first time I have written an informal obituary on this blog. In each case, it has been difficult the square the normal conventions of that genre with my self-imposed conventions of anonymity. This time around, however, is particularly difficult because of the curious nature of my relationship with the deceased. I knew him for a very short time, but I knew him deeply. In effect, I was his secular confessor. Now that he is gone, all I have left are memories, but unlike other losses we suffer in our lives, the memories are not just my own. They are also his.
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Today I received a letter from a dead man.
This week has been packed to the brim with deadlines, including multiple job applications, a recommendation letter, a conference abstract, and an article submission, so I was eager to get an early start on the day. When I arrived at the office, the lights were still off in the halls, but that was no problem. After all, it meant that for a short while I had the place to myself.
Taking full advantage of the lack of foot traffic in the early morning hours, I decided to print out some articles I had been meaning to read. While waiting for the final pages, I happened to glance at my office mailbox, which is located on the opposite wall. And there it lay: a thin, white and blue envelope marked priority mail. A glance at the return address confirmed what I realized had to be the case. There could be only one sender and he had passed away the day before.
I had only met him on three occasions, though our correspondence extended over several months. Our interactions began with a note from my advisor suggesting that the organization where I work might wish to contact this gentleman to ascertain whether he wished to preserve any materials from his long and rather distinguished scientific career. Upon sending out a preliminary e-mail inquiry, I learned that he had already been in touch with both our archives and oral history program and remained enthusiastic about the prospect of contributing papers and an interview to our collections. His case had slipped through the cracks, but my advisor's e-mail had mentioned that it might be worth picking it up again...and soon. Because the man in question was sick and getting sicker.
During my first visit to his assisted living community, he explained the situation in greater detail. Without getting into too much detail, it is enough to say that he had a severe chronic condition that caused fatigue and susceptibility to infection. The doctors weren't sure how long his illness would be manageable, but it was for the time being and so we decided to make the most of it by beginning an oral history. At first, he was surprised to learn that people might be interested in his life, rather than the famous people he encountered during the course of his career. At times I had to actively remind him that his life was interesting in and of itself and not to worry so much about remembering every detail exactly. After all, these types of interviews are intended to capture information that might be preserved in written records---the intangible emotions, the half-remembered conversations, the laughter and tears of a life well-lived.
Indeed, over the course of our conversations, it became overwhelmingly evident that this man had led a full life. Though the majority of my questions focused on his professional accomplishments, which were considerable, he was arguably more proud of the friendships and working relationships he had established along the way. He expressed equal pride in his own achievements as those of his family, and throughout our conversations it was clear he loved his wife and children deeply.
Our conversations spanned the course of three days. On the first occasion, he was quite vibrant. We walked together to the dining hall of his assisted living community, where everyone seemed to know him, even volunteers from the community opera company taking a break from rehearsal. Due to scheduling conflicts, our next conversation came about a month later. By that time, his health had deteriorated somewhat, but he fought through whatever pain and fatigue he was suffering to get through the interview.
That was on a Thursday. The following Monday, I received word that he had been admitted to the hospital. His condition had gotten worse and the doctors were saying he had anywhere between weeks and months to live. If we were going to finish the oral history, it had to be soon. The next morning, I drove to the hospital expecting to see him lying in bed. Instead, I found him walking in the hallway. After greeting me, we settled in for an hour and a half long interview, followed by meetings with doctors (while I stood in the hallway), lunch, and a drive back to his apartment. We ended up talking, with sporadic interruptions for telephone calls, home health aide visits, and dinner, until approximately 10:30 that evening. By the end, we were both exhausted but we had finished. After loading up some additional books and papers from his office into the trunk of my car, we said our goodbyes.
Except for a brief phone call the following day to let him know that our three interviews had been sent out for transcription, that was the last time we spoke. I had anticipated having a few more weeks to work with him on editing the interview, but over the weekend he succumbed to another infection. Yesterday afternoon, I received word that he had died. The news hit me harder than I would have expected given the brevity of our acquaintance. On the other hand, I had spent more than twelve hours total listening to his life story. Half a day of my life was solely dedicated to learning about the eighty plus years of his. Given the emotional intensity of the conversations, conducted with full knowledge that there might never be another opportunity to answer these questions, perhaps my reaction is more understandable.
Still, none of that could prepare me for this morning, when I received an honest-to-goodness letter from beyond the grave from my interview subject. Its contents? Two hand-written pages of notes, scrawled in pencil, amending and commenting on points from our interviews. He cared so deeply about making sure that everything was in order with his oral history that he devoted some of the last hours of his life to clarifying its contents. At the top of the first page was a precautionary note written entirely in capital letters, indicating that while he had more to say, he had been receiving lectures, presumably from both family and health care professionals, about the unpredictability of life.
In the end, these notes were all he got to write.
This is not the first time I have written an informal obituary on this blog. In each case, it has been difficult the square the normal conventions of that genre with my self-imposed conventions of anonymity. This time around, however, is particularly difficult because of the curious nature of my relationship with the deceased. I knew him for a very short time, but I knew him deeply. In effect, I was his secular confessor. Now that he is gone, all I have left are memories, but unlike other losses we suffer in our lives, the memories are not just my own. They are also his.
