At my father's funeral, a vaguely familiar gentleman approached and gave me a hug. "Hello Mick," he said. Mick. Mickey. My mother. This man thought I was a 67 year old widow. I was 38 at the time, and 66 seemed ancient. For a brief moment, my grief turned to rage.
Mistaking my homicidal glare for confusion, the man introduced himself. Jerry. I had not seen Jerry since I was about ten. When my mother was, hmm, about 38. For Jerry, time had stood still; it was an honest mistake. I corrected him gently, returned his hug.
I don't even remember how my parents knew Jerry, but I remembered him fondly. He was hilarious. Not just in the garden variety kibbitzer sort of way, like Walter or Roy, the ones who were always on the guest list when my parents "had company," the ones I referred to as uncles even though we shared no DNA. Jerry was funny in a stand-up comedian sort of way, subtle, clever, grammatically correct.
I remember also that he was ill. He's not well, my mother would whisper, whenever his name came up. I remember thinking how unfair it was, that someone so funny and smart could be so sick. It was some gastrointestinal thing, as I recall. Not as bad as "cancer," the thing that was whispered with darting eyes and a hiss that made it sound almost dirty. Bad enough, though, that it was probably a good thing he wasn't around a lot on those Saturday nights when my elegant mother teased her guests' palates with pounds of the most delicious shrimp I have ever tasted while she slaved in the kitchen, closely monitoring a Corningware baking dish filled with chicken breasts drowned in Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. The digestive disconnect might have killed him.
My nineteen year old daughter and I went to see Beautiful yesterday. Tapestry was the album of my formative decade, debuting when I entered junior high and spinning right along with me all the way through college. I wondered whether my daughter would appreciate the music, the deeply personal lyrics and the piercing melodies of my youth, the story sung by the quintessential hippie chick pictured on the album cover. I wondered, too, whether the show could really be as good as everyone has claimed, and whether I should have saved some money and just dug up my old album collection, plugged in my son's vintage turntable, closed my eyes and let time stand still.
When the crowd cheered for the young woman cast as Carole King as she appeared on the stage for the grand finale, her long wavy hair draped over the shoulders of a long, peasant style dress, I thought about Jerry and time standing still and the tricks our minds play. For a moment, I think we all made the mistake of thinking it was Carole, the real Carole, And if the real, 72 year old had appeared, I think we would have believed she was thirty. The tapestry she wove and shared, all those years ago, is timeless.
The notes of Tapestry, the song, were played in short bursts throughout, but the lyrics were never sung. The omission surprised me, even disappointed me a bit. But when I woke this morning, those were the lyrics running in a continuous loop through my head, rich and royal, everlasting. A feeling, intangible, "impossible to hold."
It was wonderful to see and feel and hear, with my daughter, the story of an extraordinary young woman who came of age at a tumultuous time, a time more innocent than but not unlike the present, in many ways. I can't help but wonder what her tapestry looks like now, several lifetimes later. Larger and older, perhaps, but still rich and royal. Timeless.
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