Jim's address to the mourners

[These are the notes I used in both Hartford and Vilnius. I strayed from them slightly. For example, in introducing me Elona said I had loved Vaiva for 31 years. I corrected her, saying that we had been married for 31 years, but I had loved her for 37 years.]

September 3, 1971. Brookline, Massachusetts.
Hi, I’m Jim. I see from your nametag that you are, um, how do you say that?
Vaiva.
Well, Vaiva, what did you do with your summer?
I was a counselor at Camp Neringa in Vermont for Lithuanian children.

It may not sound like much, but it didn’t take much. Those were the first words I exchanged when I met Vaiva, and within five minutes I was in love. Irrevocably. It was a marvelous partnership. It was everything I wanted. Vaiva was the answer to my prayer.

People have asked this week, how am I doing. Many have said that words just can’t describe the loss. But I think perhaps W.H. Auden came close, when he wrote this (note that I changed the gender for the occasion):

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

So, that is how I feel, that is how I am doing.

But that is not how life goes on. That is not how Vaiva responded to grief. Instead, she would redouble her efforts and charge forward.

The first a.p.p.l.e.-sponsored summer courses happened in 1991. That was the year Russian tanks were unleashed against Lithuanians holding hands at the television tower. Reflecting on the successes and failures of that year, Vaiva wrote:

With the creation of a.p.p.l.e. we’ve stepped out onto a tightrope. Sometimes everything that came before seems like a different life entirely. As a Lithuanian-American, I always felt lucky to have a strong sense of community and purpose. Yet everything is topsy turvy now. No longer must a feeling of obligation animate our decisions. Lithuania is free, and so are we. The choice of involvement, of commitment, is personal in a new sense. If we freely undertake creative work with and for Lithuania, then our choices must have consequences on two continents.

Vaiva accomplished so many things during her remarkable but abbreviated life. But her most important gift to us was this: through the example of her life, and through the obligations she imposed, she made each of us be the very best that we could be.

During her last weeks, Vaiva lost some of her lucidity, as the cancer entered her brain. She began to refer to dead people, notably her aunt and her mother, as if they were alive, as if they were nearby. After one such comment, I asked Vaiva if she knew where her mother was. She started to cry, and she said that močiute was in heaven, and Lijole was in heaven. Later she returned to referring to them calmly, as if they were nearby.

I like to believe that she felt their presence because they had come to escort her into her next life.