back to real life, which will nev­er be the same

Impos­si­bly, we’ve been back in our Lon­don lives for two weeks.  Thrown in at the deep end, it’s been about unpack­ing, first, with the help of our kit­ties.  They missed us, I think.

Avery’s been hard at work at school, see­ing her sum­mer exam results in con­text, plan­ning for the busy year ahead.  I’ve been at Lost Property.

We’ve had the first Par­ents Guild meet­ing, I’ve reunit­ed with the Home-Start infants, now crawl­ing, “like bee­tles,” their mum says, laugh­ing.  And of course I’ve been ring­ing.  The put­to at Chiswick, sur­vey­ing us from on high in the ring­ing cham­ber, does not change.

We’ve been cook­ing, for our­selves and for the Lost Prop­er­ty lunch.  Those ladies form such a beloved part of my life; I can’t bear to think of this time next year when my rela­tion­ship with the school will be over.  Must enjoy every bit of life right now.

The food stakes just get high­er and high­er, at our termly lunch­es.  This time, I con­tributed very sim­ple, but very deli­cious slow-cooked chick­en thighs.

Cooked with olive oil, white wine, oil-cured olives, bay leaves, onions and capers, this dish is a win­ner.  Soon to appear in the cook­book… news on that very soon.

But even as we take part in all these cher­ished activ­i­ties, our hearts are heavy.  Just as we arrived back in our Lon­don lives, we learned that one irre­place­able part of our Amer­i­can lives has gone.

Jeanne, one of our dear­est friends for 25 years, my dar­ling “oth­er moth­er,” host­ess to us for count­less din­ner par­ties and sleep­overs, and most heart­warm­ing­ly host­ess to Avery all of August this last sum­mer, has died.

The only con­so­la­tion, upon hear­ing the news from my “oth­er sis­ter” Cyn­thia, was to sit down with our piles of pho­to­graph albums and go back into the past.

Jeanne and Cyn­thia and I met when John and I lived in Maple­wood, New Jer­sey for a year, dur­ing which time we got mar­ried.  I worked with Cyn­thia at the local book­shop, and quick­ly found their beau­ti­ful home to be my home away from home.  Over bowls of vichys­soise, plates of chick­en Pojars­ki, hun­dreds of glass­es of red wine far too fine for me, we became inseparable.

We thought we had fun before Avery was born, but once she appeared, we became even more glued togeth­er.  After all, they pro­vid­ed her first bed…

And her first set of wheels…

I think this might, how­ev­er, have been Jean­ne’s first McDonald’s.

Some­times I felt that every­thing we did togeth­er had hap­pened in a nov­el.  Jeanne had dis­cov­ered, long before I met her, quite the most per­fect way to do every­thing, and we were hap­py to fall in with her plans.

Cyn­thia, or “Binky” as she is known to her best friends, has nev­er been very enthu­si­as­tic about chil­dren (save for her adored niece), but for Avery, she made an exception.

“This is pos­i­tive­ly the only time I will ever frol­ic with a child on the lawn,” she laughed.

We spent every East­er and every Hal­loween with them that we could.  I found that my expe­ri­ence of moth­er­hood was made infi­nite­ly more love­ly when I talked every­thing over with Jeanne.

Avery in her turn chris­tened Jeanne “Jean­nemom­my,” a name we all end­ed up adopt­ing.  “It’s not easy being a baby,” Jeanne told me more than once, and that sen­ti­ment helped me to see Avery’s child­hood from her per­spec­tive, rather than that of a flus­tered, uncer­tain mother.

From Jeanne, I learned every­thing I know about feed­ing peo­ple, wel­com­ing guests into my home.  I will nev­er be able to repli­cate her effort­less way with guests, mak­ing us all feel that by being there in her home, we were adding some­thing to her life.

And what a cook!  The gaz­pa­cho (for which John used to jok­ing­ly — or not! — ask for a straw)…  the but­tery caramelized car­rots, the mac­a­roni and cheese, the paper-thin-sliced roast­ed ham at East­er.  All veg­eta­bles were braised in chick­en stock.  The dev­il’s food cake, the brunch dish of creamy scram­bled eggs with mush­rooms, “oeufs inter­al­lies.”  The end­less parade of evenings spent at that kitchen table, sip­ping a sin­gle-malt Scotch, watch­ing Jeanne put­ter­ing around, pro­duc­ing all our favorite things to eat.

How com­fort­ing it was to sit back, aban­don all pre­tense at being in charge, bask in the glow of being looked after.  And how she could LISTEN.

She adored my hus­band, com­par­ing him always to her own hus­band who had died just a few months before I met her.  “John,” she said dur­ing our last after­noon togeth­er last month, “you are just the right size to hug.”

Our friend­ship was a mutu­al admi­ra­tion soci­ety.  I nev­er tired of hear­ing about her child­hood in Min­neso­ta, her unbe­liev­able adven­tures at the Man­hat­tan project as a very young woman, her ear­ly mar­ried days, her expe­ri­ences as a new moth­er.  She in turn thought that my way of doing things was quite the best way of doing things, per­haps because as much as pos­si­ble, I imi­tat­ed HER way of doing things.

And so last spring, I spent a week vis­it­ing when Jeanne was not at all well, feel­ing that life with­out her was not some­thing I could contemplate.

I knew that time was not on her side, and that I should ask her every­thing I want­ed an answer to, tell her every­thing I want­ed her to know, hug her one extra time every time I said goodbye.

When I came home to Lon­don and spoke with her on the phone, she had just one thought.  “I want Avery to live with us this sum­mer, while she works in New York.”  Cyn­thia, John, Avery and I had very frank con­ver­sa­tions about this.  Could it pos­si­bly be a good idea to add a month-long guest to a rather frag­ile house­hold, one of whose mem­bers was not feel­ing very strong?  But Jeanne was deter­mined.  She described the long talks she would have with Avery, the inter­est she had in her sum­mer adven­tures, the fun we would all have on our vis­its to them over the month.

And so it was.  Avery arrived, set­tled in to her airy bed­room at the top of the house.

She worked in New York all day and com­mut­ed to Jeanne and Cyn­thia each night, tak­ing advan­tage of their per­fect home, their lis­ten­ing ears, their advice and com­mis­er­a­tion when life in the Big Apple was try­ing to say the least.

We vis­it­ed sev­er­al times, cook­ing din­ner togeth­er in the big kitchen, feel­ing thank­ful every time we saw them togeth­er that they had had this sum­mer, those evenings.

Final­ly at the end of August it was time to col­lect Avery and say our good­byes.  Jean­nemom­my cooked lunch for us, a last bowl of creamy pink ice-cold gaz­pa­cho, just like so many sum­mers before.  I knew in my heart it was the last time I would see her.

I will be grate­ful for the rest of my life that I had the sense to tell her how I felt about her, to hug her an extra time, to meet Cyn­thi­a’s lov­ing eye and know that some­thing of a mir­a­cle had hap­pened to all of us.  It was a feel­ing I can’t describe: the meet­ing, merg­ing, con­nect­ing of gen­er­a­tions, of peo­ple who bring out the very best in each oth­er, an unname­able gift of my child com­ing to tru­ly know and love some­one who had been of the utmost impor­tance to me, all of my adult life.

It was good­bye, and we all knew it.  When Cyn­thia told me, short­ly after we had arrived back in Lon­don, that her moth­er had died, it was with a sense of pure grat­i­tude that I thought of Jeanne.  Of course all our lives are worth liv­ing, I know that.  But for me, I knew I had had the luck to know some­one whose life was immea­sur­ably worth liv­ing, and that with her death, a light had gone out of all our lives.

How was she so wise, to know that she want­ed Avery with her this sum­mer, that she could do it, pro­vide one last sum­mer of sup­port and comfort?

We bell­ringers rang for Jeanne the day after we learned the news, and it made us all laugh that we rang very bad­ly!  After all, part of Jean­ne’s mag­ic was her unswerv­ing acknowl­edge­ment that we all make mis­takes, that we are here to learn from one anoth­er, that laugh­ing at adver­si­ty is much the best way.

When I described her, and our friend­ship, to my vic­ar, he lis­tened grave­ly.  “I want you to be care­ful with your feel­ings, Kris­ten.  Just because you know it was time, and you were able to say good­bye, does­n’t mean that there won’t be an enor­mous empti­ness where Jeanne was.  But there is this: when you describe her life, and her death, I know an awful lot of peo­ple who would say, ‘Yes, please.’ ”

We will nev­er for­get her.  I am grate­ful to have Cyn­thia still there, to help us remember.

Good­bye, my dear­est “oth­er moth­er.”  And thank you.