DEEP IN MY HEART, DEAR

Prelude:The breath of the night wind/ With perfume divine is filled with the scent of the rose/ Oh love while I live I will always enshrine/ Your love in the heart of the rose.

July marked the second anniversary of the Rose Man’s passing from this dimension. Grief continues to lurk and pop up at unsuspected times. Driving east across Washington State and coming upon the golden harvested wheat fields, I burst into tears. He was from the Palouse; rolling hills of green in the Spring and golden yellow in the summer. This was my first trip back into that bank of memories since he passed and grief pressed fresh tears in remembrance.

A CD of Sigmund Romberg’s music was playing the prelude to Deep in my Heart, Dear, and the lyrics had been written for just that moment; “Oh love while I live, I will always enshrine, Your love in the heart of a rose.” A right-out-of-Hollywood-moment — old Hollywood.

My dad played trombone in dance bands during WWII. One vivid memory from my childhood was of dad playing in a band at a ship launch, a woman wearing a hat swinging a bottle until it broke on the ship, and the ship then sliding down the ramp into open water. Before mom and dad moved from their island home to the retirement home, dad would retire to his basement den and, on occasion, mom would hear him “tootin’ his horn.” Occasionally he would serenade her in his deep bass voice with a Sigmund Romberg song, One Alone. (One alone, to be my own, I alone, to know your caresses.) He liked to get a rise out of her by serenading when family was present and that he did. “Oh, Carl, stop that!”

Approaching Spokane, the vegetation changes. Once again the land bringing up childhood memories of days past with my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Tears surfaced again as I felt acute sadness. It was a cathartic trip. Grief, itself, is a journey.

It was different on the return drive west with Strauss waltzes, Barry Mannilow, singing gospel: I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free. His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.

Our paths may sever/ But I’ll remember forever/ Deep in my heart, dear/ Always I’ll dream of you. Lyrics: Deep in My Heart, Dear from Sigmund Romberg’s operetta, The Student Prince.

LADIES IN LAVENDER

Lavender’s blue, dilly, dilly/ Lavender’s green/ If I were king, dilly, dilly/ I’d need a queen.

Taking the risk that some will judge me short on humor, especially after the previous posting, and hoping that perhaps we can create a dialogue.

I recently watched a favorite film of mine on TV, Ladies in Lavender, staring two of Great Britain’s greats, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. Maggie Smith steals every scene she’s in in Downton Abbey. Judi Dench was an Oscar nominee this year for Philomena. Along with another Downton Abbey player, Penelope Wilton (Isobel Crawley), the three often appear together in film, e.g., The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a story about outsourcing seniors to India as has been done with high tech; a movie so popular that a sequel is currently being filmed. These actresses are celluloid money makers. Somehow the U.K. continues to find fabulous roles for these over 50, over 60, over 70 actresses. Both Smith and Dench turn eighty this December.

Hollywood essentially ignores this age group with the exception, of course, of 65 year old Meryl Streep. The three previews preceding a recent first run screening were all little-boy and big-boy movies; big metal creatures punching their way around, huge explosions, and requisite chase scenes.

It embarrassed me that the iconic, ninety year old Betty White was reduced to a silly sex starlet when she appeared on Dancing with the Stars. Why couldn’t she just be the beautiful, loveable, witty Betty White dancing delightfully?

My grandmother was a beautiful woman and she looked like a grandmother. I doubt that she ever worried about how sexy she looked. Are we female elders being conditioned by the culture to look and act younger than our natural age in order to prove something? Prove we still have value? In the book, From Age-ing to Sage-ing, author Rabbi Schlacter points out that the senior years are not meant to be a continuation of the middle years; rather, it’s a time to reinvent ourselves, to GROW-UP (emotionally, mentally, spiritually).

I recently saw a delightful Canadian film, The Grand Seduction, about a small fishing village in need of a doctor and their community effort to seduce a young doctor to move there. Not one explosion; many laughs.

Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly, And the lambs play; We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, our of harm’s way.

LAVENDER BLUE: Bawdy English ballad (1600’s) emerging as a children’s song in 1805. Many different versions.