« Pansies, that’s for thoughts… »
From _Hamlet_
When I was six, I did not know about Ophelia nor did I speak French so I could not know that the word for « pansy » in French is “pensée”, meaning also « thought », nor could I, did I know, that the pansy is a symbol of Christian remembrance.
But when my mother told me, in November in our living room in Storrs, Connecticut, that my best friend, Johnny Lougee, had died that day from childhood leukemia, I said,
“I want to give him pansies for his grave.”
Purple pansies.
Purple, the color of royalty but also the color of passion, from the Latin, “patire” –
to suffer.
Pansies then became very important in my family because of course my parents knew all of the meanings of this dear flower.
Johnny’s parents, Bob and Grace Lougee, were the best friends my parents had. They were all soul mates. As I said in the remembrance of my father, “Grace and Dad provided the Irish influence, Bob and Mom were the poets.” I call Grace and Bob “Aunt Grace and Uncle Bob” and they are as dear to me as were my own mother and father. The happiest and most carefree hours of my life – until now – were spent with them and my parents at the seashore every summer at their homes in Quonochontaug,
Rhode Island.
When my mother was dying, they came. I was not there but my father told me that when Uncle Bob, a reserved and self-contained man, a New Englander after all, descended the stairs after visiting my mother, tears were streaming down his face.
On the day of my mother’s memorial service I gave Aunt Grace a porcelain “pansy” box that I had given my mother and that was on her dresser where she could see it every day. To Uncle Bob I gave my mother’s favorite book that they discussed every summer.
War and Peace.
“The end of all meetings, parting;
The end of all striving, peace.”
Christiana Adams-Caille
June 3, 2008
11:40 am
June 28, 2009
From _Hamlet_
When I was six, I did not know about Ophelia nor did I speak French so I could not know that the word for « pansy » in French is “pensée”, meaning also « thought », nor could I, did I know, that the pansy is a symbol of Christian remembrance.
But when my mother told me, in November in our living room in Storrs, Connecticut, that my best friend, Johnny Lougee, had died that day from childhood leukemia, I said,
“I want to give him pansies for his grave.”
Purple pansies.
Purple, the color of royalty but also the color of passion, from the Latin, “patire” –
to suffer.
Pansies then became very important in my family because of course my parents knew all of the meanings of this dear flower.
Johnny’s parents, Bob and Grace Lougee, were the best friends my parents had. They were all soul mates. As I said in the remembrance of my father, “Grace and Dad provided the Irish influence, Bob and Mom were the poets.” I call Grace and Bob “Aunt Grace and Uncle Bob” and they are as dear to me as were my own mother and father. The happiest and most carefree hours of my life – until now – were spent with them and my parents at the seashore every summer at their homes in Quonochontaug,
Rhode Island.
When my mother was dying, they came. I was not there but my father told me that when Uncle Bob, a reserved and self-contained man, a New Englander after all, descended the stairs after visiting my mother, tears were streaming down his face.
On the day of my mother’s memorial service I gave Aunt Grace a porcelain “pansy” box that I had given my mother and that was on her dresser where she could see it every day. To Uncle Bob I gave my mother’s favorite book that they discussed every summer.
War and Peace.
“The end of all meetings, parting;
The end of all striving, peace.”
Christiana Adams-Caille
June 3, 2008
11:40 am
June 28, 2009
It further occurred to me last year that my father's belovèd brother, Robert -- Bob -- called his little brother "Johnny."
May perpetual Light shine upon them all and envelop all of us.
I give you, my friends and family, violets because they still bloom.
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