Not Ready for the Public, or More Readier Than Ever?

I went to work today, but just for my English and American literature class. There's always more than one reason for everything, and my staying home today was because our daughter has a temperate. But my wife came home for a long lunch break so that I could go to work for my class. Most of my colleagues were surprised to see me come in at all, and some even seemed a little outraged that I'm not taking better care of myself by staying home. Or maybe some of them even thought I could show more respect for Mama by being to bereaved to teach (imagine that). But as I told my department head, "It's the last week of class. If I don't come in, they'll never get any Poe."

I give a good lecture on Poe himself, but today I just gave them some reading and we all read quietly until I had read the bio and The Raven. I told them their final assignment would be a dramatic reading of the poem on Thursday. I told them it's very impressive if you manage to get the rhythm right and that's a really good way to get their students' attention. I told them it is important to use a dictionary and understand all the words, and the author's background, because if you can empathize with the narrator then you can summon the emotion it takes to do a good reading. And I began. I did not look at them. And I thought I must be crazy to be doing a reading of this poem on this day, but I did the best reading of my life. My volume increased gradually nearing the end, and I practically screamed "'Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend,' I shrieked, upstarting —" loudly enough that I did hear a giggle or two from the crowd. I was just happy I managed not to start crying myself. But when I looked up I saw several students wiping away tears. It's not the first time I've made students cry, but it is the first time that I've done so by passion rather than cleverness (I have a lecture called Using Provocation to Get Students to Speak in Class).

And then I went to the gym and set a new record for myself on the stair master, 555 calories burned.

As I was setting this record, with ease, really, I realized Mama was standing right next to me, on my right, cheering me on. I remembered a night a couple of months ago, after a downturn in her health. I was upset and couldn't sleep, so I called her. She told me she had led a very rich life, but I told her I want rich lives for my unborn children, too, I want them to know their Mamute! She told me that they will know her through me, because she will always be with me. She told me she has felt her father by her side every day since he died, and that she will be beside mine. And she will help me do all the things she's always helped/encouraged me to do, like teach, and be a good husband and father, exercise and love my country.

I realized why I had such an easy time with that translation Friday: she may have finished dying on Saturday but I think once you see the priest come into your hospital room you might get a little anxious; your spirit might begin a slow departure, and maybe the part that was gone by Friday was with me in Klaipeda, helping with translating as she has been forever. And I will be better at everything now, because next I remembered something C. S. Lewis wrote about God. The reason God has time to listen to everybody's prayers is that He's like an author and we're like his book: he isn't bound by time, he can flip back and forth between all the pages and see each minute of each character from the beginning of time to the end. I think the dead, similarly, aren't bound by time and space. I think now every member of my family can receive her help at the same time, though we're spread out over the planet. From now on I will be a better person, I will be better in all my endeavors, because I will have Mama's help all the time instead of just when I ask, and nobody gives better advice than she does.