It was 3pm at the communist funeral and the family poets were stepping up to the plate.
I read my own tribute, a heartfelt and at times funny riff on the Marx Brother’s refrain hello I must be going. My cousin Dara read a poem he had written too.
The refrain of his poem (we have a similar writing style in some ways, we love a bit of repetition) was presenté! Something latin american/ spanish speaking lefties say about a departed comrade or friend, someone gone but still “present”, still living on.
Afterwards, he told me that the question that he had decided to write towards was: what does it mean to be a comrade?
“And what I sort of landed on” he told me as me and my parents shamelessly stole his chips “was the idea of showing up. That’s what it comes down to”.
The succinctness of this observation has been turning over in my mind. It is a lasting image, like my lovely brothers, now suddenly men, carrying our hero’s coffin on their shoulders as the room filled with the sound of Ruben Gonzalez’ Quizás, quizás. My cousin laughed when the music started. “What a legend.”
Robert was completely remarkable for two main reasons. The first one was his absolute presence in all of our lives. We couldn’t work out how he did it- how he could be there for so many people, such a huge figure in the lives of each member of the family, not to mention his many friends. How loved he made a person feel. How he went out of his way to invite you into the fold.
The other remarkable thing was his life of political action, solidarity work, his indefatigable idealism and refusal to ever sit out a fight, a struggle, a cause.
I hadn't quite worked out what that connection was between these two powerful and dazzling qualities until Dara drew the line for me: he was someone who was present. He was someone who showed up.
He showed up in a rather peculiar fashion last Thursday, four days after he had died. I was on the phone to meg while I was cooking dinner, and decided to put her on speaker phone. Looking down at my phone screen, I saw that we were in a group call- meg, Robert and me.
How could that have happened?
How did I join him to the call?
And if he was there listed as being on it- wouldn’t he also have had to answer? In the moment I marked it up as a horrifying coincidence, my ear having hit his name somehow. Now, in the days after the funeral and in the throes of a quickly hardening and sobering grief, I see it as a blessing. He was giving us a blessing.
Yes, he’s saying you’re onto something good here. Yes, this is what you think it is. Follow this lead. Don’t bolt. Look how you are presenté for each other. Where there are people who are present, I am present. This is the quality that makes us magic, that makes our magical little family who we are. Showing up is why we are bonded. It is the lighthouse.
I get goosebumps thinking about it.
To tell the truth I have lost people before but never someone who was a friend, who adulthood- despite the difference in our ages- had made a contemporary of mine as well as someone I idolised and adored. To tell a further truth, I’ve never before experienced a loss followed by so many signs, such strange sensations of the lost one being presenté, of having turned from one type of living presence to another. It doesn’t exactly feel like a ghost in the room or anything- but just that…
It feels like, when he left the world, all of the Robert-ness, all of his twinkly weird little magic, flew out of his blood and body and into our body.
Our collective body. The body of the family, the body of the community, my own body. I feel this weird strength and capacity that I did not feel before, this feeling of being guided, not so much in my personal, individual life but in my collective life. I find myself reaching out. Thinking of little people who are not in our clan but who could be, to whom I could pay the love and presence forward. I’m hit with inspiration to make it known to people who may not know it that someone will always be present for them, as I have always known there would be someone present for me, as I will always know that.
And other things too- like, when I gave my eulogy, it was full of jokes. There was a Robert-y humour in the way I told stories that sent ripples of tearful laughter through the room. I am confident in my ability to write and convey sentimentality and shmaltz, but humour is something a little more out of my comfort zone. Yet it felt easy. It felt easy and it felt like something not to be self conscious about, because it didn’t matter if I performed well or whatever-what mattered was that what needed to be said was said, and that my sad and grateful clan got a moment to laugh and smile among the tears. He was always making us laugh. I keep hearing comments come out of my brothers’ mouths that are so him, and I think maybe he is still making us laugh.
Pain is weird because it’s sharper than a lot of other things in life. It makes things very clear. It reminds me of how much love I have and how much love I have been given. I can see it overflowing. It reminds me of who I am and who I am made of.
I will always be presenté for you.
I will show up.
Maybe that will be my singular promise to the world.
Maybe that’s the only promise that’s ever really mattered.
I am sorry for your loss. And I am touched by hearing your words about this person. I didn't know Robert a moment ago, but I know a little now. May his light shine through your collective and inspire others, too.