A Farewell
McCarthy, Abigail
There is everywhere, at once a great interest in, and a great tentativeness about, the new feminism. I think this tentativeness, the holding back, the reluctance to accept it does not really...
...Even then when she knew that time was running out, time for others was a largesse she dispensed with ease and grace...
...She thought children every bit as important as adults, never forgot their names, their birthdays, their interests...
...She had strong likes and dislikes---especially of the people she saw as reinforcing inhumanity in the church or any of our institutions...
...She filled her time when he spent long hours away in the male world...
...Her husband, part-professor, partpolitician, part-administrator, would be the first to admit that feminists would call him a male chauvinist...
...Outside the little town from which her family came we picnicked in a state park with other women, relatives of hers...
...You know how much I love life," she told one caller in the midst of that struggle...
...Mary Anne was not irritatingly placid or content...
...Mary Anne died this year, a still young mother and grandmother--a victim, after several years of struggles, of leukemia and a raging blood infection loosed by it...
...What would be the point of these good things if there were no Mary Annes...
...We are afraid of a world of strident, contesting women with no time for the little comforting things...
...She enjoyed all the fruits of creation, and shared that joy with her children and their friends, as apt to call them together to watch a migrating flock of finches as she was to gather them for a concert...
...And, of course, that is what we are afraid o f - - t h a t we will lose the Mary Annes, and with them the retreats from the struggle, the places of repose, the affirmation of our lives, the nurturing warm nests from which to go forth...
...Perhaps," she said to me, "I should have gone back to school...
...She made fresh the rather banal liturgy of our seasonal holidays because she welcomed them with warmth and gladness--with Indian corn on the door at harvest time, pumpkins at Halloween, construction paper turkeys in the window for weeks before, and then the laden Pilgrim platter on Thanksgiving, and May baskets in the spring...
...She loved to share going to the lake, rides in the country, browsing through galleries and antique stores, A FAREWELL ABIGAIL MeCARTHY finding a new vendor of cheeses or vegetables...
...She showed deep interest in his progress as a free-lance photographer and in the portfolio he had with him, and shared with him her pride in her own children and her concerns...
...Mary Anne had the gift of affirming the identity of others by her interest in them and her celebration of their existence...
...And to the very last she was a center of life, and an affirmation of life, to her husband and children and friends...
...We left St...
...And when she survived the first onslaught of blood disease she wondered aloud to friends whether she could not have done more with her life...
...They had much in common, loved each other, their children and their friends and shared a comfortable creatureliness...
...But even then her chief reason was that she might have been more help to her husband...
...During her last stay in the hospital, when no visitors were encouraged, she arranged to have my son, who was traveling through the city, admitted...
...She loved gossip as much as anyone, and, quite frankly, it was a joy to share it with her...
...She battled successfully a fierce bout of depression when her children were small and close together--literally walking it away...
...Of course, we who subscribe to the need for the movement, will hasten to say that the intent is to free us all to be wholly humane and (Continued on page 199) 22 November 1974:184...
...Nor was she too good to be true...
...And attention...
...We talked and laughed and reminisced as women will, who have been fortunate enough to have friends of every age...
...She did this in the little ways most of us think ourselves too busy for--remembering birthdays and anniversaries, remembering to recall and ask about occasions and projects important to her friends (and perhaps to no one else in all the world...
...She was not free from the unsettling anxieties which beset the women of our time...
...Indeed, it was only borne in on me that something must be very wrong when my oldest did not receive a card for the first time in twenty-odd years...
...Half of my pleasure came from her keen delight in every detail of the day...
...She was not unaware or blind to the fact, but was philosophical about it...
...She was by very nature a helper, a nurturer...
...Mary Anne loved to welcome people, to warm and comfort them with her hospitality, to offer them good food and drink...
...She and I were both mothers of young children then, and a day to spend as we pleased was a rare, happy luxury...
...I think this tentativeness, the holding back, the reluctance to accept it does not really stem from stubborn obduracy, or deep reactionary bent, but from a haunting fear of loss...
...We hastened to reassure her, because we could not really think of a different Mary Anne...
...All this autumn I have been remembering a carefree day in sunshiny fall weather spent with a friend years ago...
...Paul early in the morning, driving through the valley of the Minnesota River where the cottonwoods and willows, the maples and the oaks flamed with color...
Vol. 101 • November 1974 • No. 7
