On Tuesday, February 23, we sponsored a reading at the Bucknell Stadler Center for Poetry to honor Leo and to say thank you to the many friends and colleagues, especially in the Bucknell community, who were so kind to us in the aftermath of Leo's passing.
The poet was the accomplished Michael Blumenthal, whose reading that evening was touching, warm and humorous all at once. We are grateful to Michael for the memorable reading.
Our special thanks go to everyone who turned out on that rainy evening, especially Leo's paternal grandparents, who drove several hours to be there; his Great Uncle Jerry and Great Aunt Kathy, who also journeyed several hours for the event; and our dear friend Dianne, who drove more than five hours from Jefferson, Ohio to be there.
Leo's father made opening remarks on behalf of both of us and our children, and you can read those if you like in the comments section, where they're posted as the easiest way to provide them on this blog. Our colleague Robert kindly took pictures of the event, and you can see those here, featuring Leo's grandparents, Mr. Blumenthal, our friend and poet Shara (who runs the Stadler Center), our friend Laura (holding Rory), Dianne with all of us, and Danni's Mom holding her in a beautiful set of photos that Robert captured.
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1.
ReplyDeleteReading for Leo Francis Mackey
February 23, 2010
Stadler Center for Poetry
Pete Mackey
Good evening. Thank you for being here. Kyna and I appreciate your taking the time on a Tuesday evening to join us at the Stadler Center. We especially want to thank Shara McCallum and Andy Ciotola for their work on this evening’s event. We extend a warm welcome to tonight’s special guest, poet Michael Blumenthal. It is a real privilege to be able to sponsor his reading in Leo’s name.
In 1992, some friends and I went to Costa Rica for an adventure of white-water rafting, hiking rain forests, and even to climb a volcano. An active volcano. And yes, we were sober. Well, we only got about one-third of the way up the volcano. Not because we got tired – or had decided there were perhaps smarter things to do. But because that was when the volcano had what is called a “minor event.” Mount Arenal, as that volcano is named, apparently has “minor events” quite often.
Meaning, as we stood there, on it, the volcano rumbled, shook, and spewed rocks the size of cars. They flew hundreds of feet in the air. My friends and I, like all the other well-educated volcano climbers, at that point shrewdly raised our hands in self-defense.
Fortunately, the debris landed several hundred yards away and tumbled harmlessly to rest. It was then that all of us smart people ascending the volcano decided to descend.
As we did, we could look west and see a lake stretching far into the distance. That lake, which is known for obvious reasons as Lake Arenal, extends from the base of the volcano. The lake was flooded with ash, rock and lava in 1968, when – for the first time in thousands of years – the volcano had a major, and deadly, eruption. It has been active ever since.
The lava from that eruption ran west, into the lake, which prevented a horrible situation from getting even worse for the local villagers. And within 10 years, where once a fiery ravine had gouged the earth, instead, with the help of hydroelectric dams, a pristine lake had emerged.
That lake has been much on my mind these last few months. I don’t know why for sure, but I would like to take a guess.
2.
ReplyDeleteAs you know, Kyna and I have sponsored tonight’s reading to honor our beloved little boy, Leo Francis. And also to say thank you to our friends in the Bucknell community for your kindnesses in the aftermath of Leo’s passing.
We felt Leo kick regularly during the last few months of our pregnancy. He was the first of our triplets to be born, and entered the world with a staccato cry. He had deep blue eyes and a full head of black hair. He liked draping his leg over his little bed as he slept. He had long limbs, and when we held him, he wrapped his arms around us, and the only word that describes that union is “peace.”
He was born weighing 4.15 pounds, which sounds small but is actually big for a triplet, as the doctors and nurses kept commenting. He was so alert, looking all about, vividly alive. They all fell in love with him. Within days of his being born, days before he got sick, Kyna and I were talking to each other about his presence. Four days after he was born, we were saying that Leo looked like he was ready to get up and walk out of the neonatal intensive care unit.
We did not know it until meeting him, but it is possible for a newborn to have an unmistakable charisma, to embrace you with the presence of an “old soul,” to look you in the eyes and convey that you are meeting a child already wiser and deeper than you are. And somehow he died of a rare bacterial infection. It took hold the last few days of his life. Kyna and I were witnesses to how he fought it with such courage.
The last night of his life, in a battle that went on for 18 hours, flooded with morphine as the doctors fought to save him, through the agonizing procedures that medical treatment sometimes requires, he still, still, opened his eyes to me every time I spoke. I don’t know how to describe it except as a bond deeper than life itself. Kyna and I held him in our arms as he passed away, and everything changed.
We were stunned by the news that we were having triplets. We were warned throughout the pregnancy of the risks of having triplets, and my brave wife made it through a hundred critical markers to give birth to three healthy children at once in the 32nd week, which is a feat at which I can only marvel. Our hearts exploded with joy.
And somehow our triplets have been separated in this life. Our twin daughters have lost their big brother. Our first child, our little boy, is not here to enjoy the wonder and beauty that are his precious sisters, Rory and Danni.
Into the unspeakable pain of losing our son rushed our family and friends. Some of you, as you so courageously shared with us, understand too truly what losing a child is like. All of you said, “How can we help?”
You helped with flowers and cards that touched us. By sponsoring masses in Leo’s honor. By having him remembered in perpetuity by religious orders around the world. By making our family dinners, every Friday for months actually. You were generous and patient and giving. And I think this is why that experience at Arenal comes to mind. Because to us you were the pristine waters. The reflection of the sky.
3.
ReplyDeleteSo many of you began your cards and conversations with us this way, “I don’t know what to say…” Or, “There are no words…” and then you would share words of thoughtfulness and compassion. Many of you, meanwhile, also contributed to the memorial fund we set up in Leo’s honor.
Thanks to you, we have been able to make gifts in Leo’s name to the Ronald McDonald House where we stayed for so many nights while our babies were in the NICU; to the Union County Public Library to install a children’s bookshelf, including for the books that our colleagues in Communications donated in Leo’s memory; and to the People of Batahola, Nicaragua, to support an arts organization for children that is part of the community that Bucknell has helped for more than 10 years. That fund will continue, as we try to help children in Leo’s name the rest of our lives, as we know our boy would have wanted.
So Kyna and I have sponsored this reading tonight to say thanks. And because, as most of you know from your own experience, when you have infant children at home, receptions are a lot easier than cooking.
And we have sponsored this reading because we love poetry and literature and wanted to invoke Leo’s name in the realm of these living arts. So many words are different to us now. Their meaning is less adequate, more tenuous, and at the same time more profound. Not only words like grief, loss, and longing, I assure you, but also words like family, friendship, innocence, joy, connection, hope, gratitude, and, most of all, love.
The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote:
“But, as you went, a segment of reality
flashed in upon our stage by that same crevice
through which you passed: the green of real verdure
the real sunshine and the real wood.”
So here is a good place to express to you is beyond words, and that is simply, thank you.
I have written one book in my life, about James Joyce’s Ulysses. It was an obsession for a while, actually. Kyna married me anyway. The main character, Leopold Bloom, confronts the quotidian and mysterious confusion of life during one expansive day in Dublin.
A central memory he ponders during that day is the loss of his infant child, Rudy, 11 years before. Rudy, who is only a product of Joyce’s imagination, was Leopold Bloom’s first and only son. He lived exactly as many days as our son did. Joyce’s depiction of such a loss is typically sensitive, as yearning for Rudy accompanies Bloom across that day, as certainly as it accompanies him every day. Yet Joyce got it wrong in one place. As Bloom reflects on what his life was like before Rudy was born, Joyce has Bloom think, “I was happier then.”
Even the greatest writers do not always find the right words. Kyna and I will never stop wishing we could give our beautiful Leo his life back. We so wish he could share the joy of his sisters. We also are humbled and grateful to have known him, that he shared what he did with us, and to know him still. Our lives are better because Leo is our son. Some experiences – tragic and loving being the words for them – are beyond imagination, and with that inherent vulnerability before a mysterious universe, literature is even more like life, where great gifts, like Leo, like our daughters, like your kindness, come too.
Kyna and I thank you for sharing your love with us. Now it is a pleasure to turn the microphone over to the poets, beginning with our friend, Shara.