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My friend, William Carlos, got married in July of 2009, five months after my 16-year-old daughter Alice's death.
The reception was held in the garden of a lovely old hotel in Aptos, just a few blocks from the beaches of Monterey Bay. As we entered the courtyard, two tall round tables greeted us. The first held a large scrapbook, laid open with a fancy pen and awaiting messages from the newlyweds' guests. The second table contained a tumble of flowers, candles and framed photos. Among the images displayed there were William Carlos' mother, his bride's grandfather and Alice.
At no other festive occasion, can I remember The Sacred Dead being so prominently and gracefully represented. I could almost see them drifting out of their gilded frames and clinking champagne glasses conspiratorially as they wisped through the crowded walkway, drawn as we all were to be near enough to whisper secrets to the blessed pair.
There has always been an awkward intimacy to my friendship with William Carlos, due in part to the vulnerability of secrets shared by writers and later, when Alice blossomed from little boy to teenage girl, it only increased. William Carlos was the first person I called when Alice revealed her true gender at fifteen and a year later, he was one of the last people standing watch at her bedside as her organs shut down one by one. That he and his beloved included her in this gesture of remembrance on such a happy occasion was both heartbreaking and precious.
As the evening progressed, the wine flowed and the sun fell. When twilight was upon us, the young and beautiful took to the makeshift dance floor. My husband Jay and I stood under the eves, watching them and I found that if I let my vision blur enough, I could see Alice there among them. Now, just a wisp of a slender tree, her head thrown back in laughter, her eyes bright, no less brave, no less beautiful than those who shimmied and twirled and tangled in the center of that splendid garden.
Even now, as try to paint this picture and capture this moment for you, I wonder if it is important to include all the relevant details. Does it matter that there were no less than eight dancers on that floor with complicated gender? My first instinct is to say “no”. But yes, in fact, it DID matter, because in them I could and can still see all the joy and possibility which awaited her if she could have held out and held on.
I left her there on that dance floor with William Carlos and his bride, knowing that she was safe, that she would dance and laugh and drink too much champagne, that she would talk too loud, and make a scene and fall in love once or twice before morning just like any other seventeen-year-old girl.
That we, as a culture, do not instinctively make space for our dead strikes me as troubling. Or perhaps, more pointedly, that we prefer to separate grief out, expect it to remain behind the closed doors of support groups and therapy sessions, that the message sent and received early on is that we should not mention such things in polite company. The co-existence of joy and grief is something that we do not understand. And yet, on this happiest of occasions, a starry-eyed pair of lovers managed to invoke and invite the spirits of grief and loss to join them in celebration and it was this gesture which allowed me to see her there, beautiful as she was as she danced.
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