Lib taking a picture of Pat’s last apartment, the lower balcony, on Nesstorstrasse in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, a block away from Ryan and Steve.
Patrick’s Garden, where he and Libby used to hide from their parents
Summer 2007 brought a time to reflect and a time to plan. Within a year, almost to the day, I had lost both Pat and my Dad. School was over. I could return to the many condolences, which should have been answered, and the journal entries, which should have been written. In reality, I did neither. Libby and I were going back to Berlin. We had to go. We needed to be with Pat, and we both felt that he was there more than anywhere else. We needed to learn about what he loved, the schools, the libraries, the cafés, the clubs, the language, the opera house, the philharmonic, and most importantly, the people. We needed to know the people he loved and who loved him back. And we did, as much as possible, in the ten days we were there, largely because of the generosity of Pat’s friend Christian Krüger. He gave us his newly renovated apartment, in the Prinzelauer or northeast section of Berlin. Christian was a doting host in spite of a demanding job with Germany’s state department and exams looming. Our first night, he showed us the quiet but busy neighborhood, including the best places to eat, how to get on the internet, where to buy groceries, get on the U-Bahn and the S-Bahn, get phone cards, and buy train tickets. When we finally got to bed around midnight, he was still up, doing laundry, and then going to his other apartment across town, from where he would leave at 7:00 AM for Vienna for a week. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I do this all the time.” He convinced us by saying that he had already hosted thirty-five guests that year. We marveled at his energy but were too tired to help him.
The next morning, long after he was on a plane, we found a welcome note, guide books, two maps of Berlin (one of which was so detailed that we could find the smallest streets), as many bottles of wine as we could possibly drink, and four bars of chocolate. We felt a warm sensation that had nothing to do with the sun shining outside or the warm breezes floating through the open and unscreened windows. We were home. Pat’s home. The fear of a strange city, a foreign language, new friends, receded. It was time to learn about Pat’s world.
The rest that follows is my thank you letter for that trip. As soon as Libby and I returned to Connecticut, I wrote it in a mad rush, eager to recap our renewed love of Pat’s Germany. I backed up my hard drive right after the first draft, and about five minutes later, it crashed, just like my techie friend warned it could. By the time I got a new one and returned to those reflections, school started, and I put the blinders on to keep pace with my fast-thinking chargelings. If you’ve been in a middle school lately, there is no need to explain. Let’s just say that I’m back in eighth-grade and saying words like cool and awesome more than normal. My kids are great and don’t mind my reminisces about Pat or the occasional tears. In fact, I think they welcome the honesty because they listen silently, and then they give me a hug.
Before I include that letter, I wanted to mention a few small items to those who loved Pat. One is that we started a garden at home in his memory. It began with a yew tree, which Bob planted because it is often found in cemeteries. It is part of the setting outside the Capulet vault where Romeo and Juliet kill themselves, a play which Pat read in eighth-grade and recommended to me for my own literature class. I’ve taught it every year since, and when I returned to school the April after Pat died, I taught it again. My students rejected the idea that lovers would kill themselves, but I told them it happens, and they stared back at me knowingly.
We added a stone bench and a weeping willow given by my cousins Avery, Ned, and Polly, and their mother, my Aunt Beverly, who loved Pat and who is the wisest woman I know. I added a memorial plaque, donated by a friend, who remembered when I was hugely pregnant with Pat and Lib. The picture I’m including does not show the yew, which was eaten by deer and now has to live in an unattractive wire cage. As soon as it’s presentable, I’ll take another picture and give you an update.
Another is that we are donating a memorial bench for Pat to the Pomfret Library. It will sit to the left of the entrance, in front of green bushes, and be so close to the road that you might be able to read the inscription from your car if you slow down.
No comments:
Post a Comment