Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "The Cross of Snow"
In the long, sleepless watches of the night,
A gentle face--the face of one long dead--
Looks at me from the wall, where round its head
The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light.
Here in this room she died, and soul more white
Never through martyrdom of fire was led
To its repose; nor can in books be read
The legend of a life more benedight.
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast
These eighteen years, through all the changing scenes
And seasons, changeless since the day she died.
This is ultimately what I believe to be the most romantic sonnet ever written. Longfellow didn't compose this poem the year his wife died, nor the next. He wrote it 18 years later. When I first heard this poem on Garrison Kellor's "The writers almanac" I burst into tears, feeling the entire weight of Longfellows sorrow and passion for his wife. This sort of passion is more commonly associated with the grieving widow- not the widower who usually remarries. My maternal grandmother lost my grandfather when she was 56. She never considered dating or remarrying, and still speaks of "Steve" as if he sat upon the same sofa with her, sharing her life- a life she began sharing with him when she was a mere child of 15. She hasn't been lonely, her memories of their life together have somehow given her life alone a fullness I would have not thought possible. My mother and her sisters gave up on trying to get their mother to date years ago. Saying that a woman loves "longest".
After hearing the sonnet and doing some background research on Longfellow, I romanticized this notion myself- the idea of a man loving his wife so deeply, so fiercely, that 18 years after her passing he should feel as if he still wore her love across his chest. And I decided this was the sort of love I wanted in a partner.
So, I used to routinely ask Duane if he would remarry if "something" happened to me. I am quite vague about the "something" because in truth I wish to be immortal and any discussions of death give me the heebie jeebies and incite a ritual hand washing and the mad searching of a bottle germ-x! His answer has always been that it took him a great portion of his life to find me, and that statistically it seemed improbable that he would find someone else (engineers are such passionate people!). I claimed this as a pledge of faith to me forever and ever, and offered up a similar less logically expressed pledge of enduring love as well. Thinking of my grandmothers faithfulness to my grandfather, and of Longfellows enduring passion for his wife.
And then I became pregnant with Lucas and Matilda.
As I was being wheeled into the hospital to be prepped for surgery, I grabbed Duane's hand and asked him to promise me something. I told him to promise me that he would remarry if "something" happened to me. To do so as quickly as he could, to not grieve for me and raise our children without a mother. His response was "Sweetheart, nothing is going to happen to you". "No, no, no. Promise you will remarry!"
In the blink of an eye, the way I viewed Longfellows poem changed. I no longer saw it as a beautiful and lasting tribute of undying love for his late wife, but of a heavy *burden* he carried across his chest for 18 long years. A coldness in his life- a ravine so deep that sunlight could not reach. A soul without warmth or comfort on a winters eve. This was not the way I wanted the father of my children to live. This was not the way I wanted the man I loved to live. A cross that I saw as passionate homage became an empty tattoo.
We now joke about who we will remarry. With four children, we joke that remarriage would be a necessity on either side as neither of us want our parents to have a heavy hand in raising our children. I have given Duane permission to remarry a much younger "hottie", and I have promised to marry for money. :-)
I am not sure what inspired me to share this story with you this evening exactly. But there it is.
Goodnight.
