" . . . She must think that I've forgotten her now that she's dead; how lonely she must be feeling, how deserted! Oh, I must hurry to see her, I mustn't lose a minute, I can't wait for my father to come - but where is it? How can I have forgotten the address? Will she know me again, I wonder? How can I have forgotten her all these months? It's so dark, I shan't be able to find her; the wind is holding me back; but look! there's my father walking ahead of me . . ." I call out to him: "Where is grandmother? Tell me her address. Is she all right? Are you quite sure she has everything she needs?" "Yes, yes," says my father, "you needn't worry. Her nurse if well trained. We send her a little money from time to time, so that she can get your grandmother anything she may need. She sometimes asks what's become of you. She was told you were going to write a book. She seemed pleased. She wiped away a tear." And then I seemed to remember that shortly after her death, my grandmother had said to me, sobbing, with a humble look, like an old servant who has been given notice, like a stranger: "You will let me see something of you occasionally, won't you; don't let too many years go by without visiting me. Remember that you were my grandson, once, and that grandmothers never forget." And seeing again that face of hers, so submissive, so sad, so tender, I wanted to run to her at once and say to her, as I ought to have said to her then: "Why, grandmother, you can see me as often as you like, I have only you in the world, I shall never leave you any more." What tears my silence must have made her shed through all those months in which I have never been to the place where she is lying! What can she have been saying to herself? And it is in a voice choked with tears that I too shout to my father: "Quick, quick, her address, take me to her." But he says: "Well . . . I don't know whether you will be able to see her. Besides, you know, she's very frail now, very frail, she's not at all herself, I'm afraid you would find it rather painful. And I can't remember the exact number of the avenue." "But tell me, you who know, it's not true that the dead have ceased to exist. It can't possibly be true, in spite of what they say, because grandmother still exists." My father smiles a mournful smile: "Oh, hardly at all, you know, hardly at all. I think it would be better if you didn't go. She has everything that she wants. They come and keep the place tidy for her." "But is she often alone?" "Yes, but that's better for her. It's better for her not to think, it could only make her unhappy. Thinking often makes people unhappy. Besides, you know, she is quite lifeless now. I shall leave a note of the exact address, so that you can go there; but I don't see what good you can do, and I don't suppose the nurse will allow you to see her."
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 788-789
Proust's dream about his grandmother continues, and his father arrives. This entire passage is just heart-breaking. I keep reflecting back on my own grandmother, in this case Maude, my father's mother. When I have these melancholy reflections she is my default setting, as compared to my mother's mother, Alice. It's not that I didn't love Alice, or, as we called her, Phoodie (because of her odd/endearing habit of saying "phoodie doodie"), but because she was always a much more active presence in my life, and actually lived with us for a while when I was growing up. Alice's health was much better and I don't think she was ever in the hospital more than a couple days in her entire life, until one day she got up, prepared herself for the day's Phoodie business, and dropped dead of a stroke. So, when I think of someone fading away alone I always default to my grandmother Maude, who lived years beyond my grandfather Herb's (Jum) passing.
But the thing here is that Proust is discussing his dead grandmother, and Marcel, in that strange dream logic, completely understands that fact. Consequently, this ends up being a rumination on the next world, and that most Proustian of phenomena: memory. What do we owe the dead? It seems that the least we owe them is memory, which is also often the least we give them. We have no trouble spending their inheritance or going into debt to provide the fancy funeral that Lucinda Williams brilliantly critiqued but then we forget about them. In my gentler moments I think that funerals, although never expensive ones, serve the same point as the Jewish custom of limiting the public display of suffering. However, in the case of expensive ones it's another example of the commodification of everything, in this case grief, that dominates, and blights, a capitalist society. I don't know, maybe it's the same thing as parents who throw lots of money at gifts for their kids, because it's simply less exhausting than spending them with them.
Marcel wants to visit his grandmother, if only in dreams. His father tells him it's probably impossible: "Well . . . I don't know whether you will be able to see her. Besides, you know, she's very frail now, very frail, she's not at all herself, I'm afraid you would find it rather painful. And I can't remember the exact number of the avenue." She is fading and is very frail, but in this case it is her memory that is fading and is very frail. As part of this lovely metaphoric rumination on memory and loss and meaning (which feels like it belongs in one of those dark Dicken's Christmas stories), Marcel asks his father about the afterlife: "But tell me, you who know, it's not true that the dead have ceased to exist. It can't possibly be true, in spite of what they say, because grandmother still exists." His father's answer seems terribly true and truly terrible: "Oh, hardly at all, you know, hardly at all. I think it would be better if you didn't go. She has everything that she wants. . ." He admits that she is alone, "but that's better for her. It's better for her not to think, it could only make her unhappy. Thinking often makes people unhappy. Besides, you know, she is quite lifeless now."
The other day in my Dar al-Islam class we were discussing the point that Nasr makes in his brilliant book The Heart of Islam that whereas in Christianity the greatest sin is to disobey God, in Islam the greatest sin is to forget God (essentially meaning that the notion of tawhid, or oneness, is so central to Islam that one could not logically make the decision to break with God, but a person, being human and thus terribly flawed, might forget; I know enough atheists who have left Islam, at least temporarily, that it's important to remember that Nasr's point is more aspirational than definitive). Is forgetfulness the greatest sin of all relationships?
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