Ubi Sunt
Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?
Where are those who came before us?
The Old English poems ask—over and over again, in different words, different ways—Where are those who came before us? Where have they gone?
The motif begins in the Old Testament, and then threads its way through Old English and Middle English literature. It’s taken up again by the Romantic poets and carries into modern poems and love songs. Where have all the flowers gone? sang Pete Seeger in the 1950s, his lyrics based on a Ukrainian folk song. Where have all the young girls gone? Where have all the soldiers gone?
The Old English poets celebrate deeds of ancient kings and queens, war heroes from the past, glorious cities of yore. But where are they now? they ask.
Where has the horse gone? Where is the rider?
Where is the giver of gifts?
Where is the seat of feasting? Where is the hall-joy?
… How the time has slipped
Down under the night-helmet, as if it never was.
—from The Wanderer, translated by Craig Williamson
After my father’s mini-stroke last November, our family’s attention focused more sharply on him. For weeks, he was at the center of our plans and thoughts as we tried to understand what had happened, to figure out what to do next. One moment, we were holding our breaths as he seemed on the brink of dying; the next, he was driving us crazy, trying to charge out of the house in the middle of the night. There were haunting moments at his bedside, and frustrating nights of little sleep.
The rest of life—back at home, working at my computer, walking the dog, seeing friends—was drifty and dream-like.
It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced that surreal feeling.
Years ago, when my mother was dying, the family took turns at her bedside. We temporarily moved into my parents’ house, where we lost touch with routine and the rest of the world for weeks, existing on whatever food thoughtful friends and neighbors provided. When we slept, it was for a few hours at a time, often in random places on the floor.
When I had to leave for work, I was floating, still half in some other world and yearning to be back, close to my mother.
Later on, during an intensive hospice volunteering stint in San Francisco, I spent several days in a row with a single dying patient. After long stretches of sitting at his bedside matching my breath to his, or, towards the end, counting the seconds between his breaths—I felt so close to him, or to some part of what he was going through.
Even when I worked a double shift from early in the day until late into the night, I didn’t want to leave. Once, I remember returning through a downpour that sloshed water up to my ankles to the place where I was staying. All night, I listened to the rain at the window, waking and sleeping, thinking about the man at the edge of his life just a few buildings away.
It’s a kind of soul closeness, a simple being-with, untainted by surface clutter. A waiting-next-to.
Even to me, an agnostic, an unbeliever, it felt like a place between worlds. A place where our personalities and histories and much of who we were, were dropped.
Later on, after each crisis was over, I would miss the patients who died. I would miss my mother, achingly, for a long time. And I was enormously grateful when my father recovered.
In all those instances, I also felt a sense of loss for that feeling, the close awareness of another being.
One story about the early Anglo Saxons: When they saw the imposing monuments left behind by the Celts and the remains of Roman cities, the elaborate baths, buildings and cities, they were awed. Because, compared to their own wood and thatch homes, these were the remnants of great civilizations.
But the buildings had crumbled into ruins, and the ancient people were gone. So, the poets of works like Beowulf, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Ruin reflected: If these civilizations, with their intricate and magnificent structures, had disappeared, then theirs, too, would be gone someday.
Wondrous are these ancient wall-stones,
Shattered by time, foundations shaken by fate,
The old work of giants, crumbled, corrupted—
Rooftops in ruin, towers tumbled down.
…
The burg-halls were bright, the bathhouses beautiful,
The gabled roofs grand. The sounds of warriors,
Their steps and shouts, reverberated under roofs.
The meadhalls were full of wine and revelry—
Until fierce fate overturned everything.
—From The Ruin, translated by Craig Williamson
More and more often, my father gets a far-away look in his eyes, the one where I wonder where he is, what he’s thinking. More and more often, he seems gone from the present, from the joy he used to take in other people, in exploring the world, or even just being in the world.
In those moments, he doesn’t seem unhappy. He seems not-here.
My father is gradually leaving, although the process has already been going on for years, may take years longer.
Over time, the meaning of the ubi sunt theme quicksilvers, its emphasis sliding in different generations and cultures. In the Old English poems, the motif was layered with meanings that both celebrated earthly existence and reflected on its transience. Some of the poets moralized: Material joys are temporary, so spend your energy contemplating the spiritual realm instead. The ruins of older civilizations could serve as a memento mori, a reminder of death’s inevitability—the Old English word was dustsceawung, the contemplation of dust.
But there’s also a melancholic beauty in the poets’ yearning for the past. Some suggest we should seize the day, enjoy what we have, while we have it. Look! they seemed to say. Look how amazing the lives of the people before us. They left, and we will leave too. We are all leaving.
The gold and the wine and the heroic deeds have disappeared from memory, they say—and yet, the poets remember, and so do we.
The walls of my father’s house are crammed with pictures: Photos by promising young photographers, images of ships and fishing boats and a riverboat, prints of birds by John James Audubon and paintings of birds by a friend. There are two artistic cartoons depicting my dad, and there are family photos, ranging from severe and traditional to lively and colorful.
Then there are the photographs from his days as a newspaper man. In one of these, he and five other people pose with President John Kennedy. In another, he reaches up to shake hands with Jimmy Carter. In still another, he’s sits with in the news reporters’ pool, his back turned toward us, as Gerald Ford speaks from a lectern. A more formal portrait shows him in a small group with Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Looking at the pictures, you feel—or I feel—the boundless energy, the charisma of this man. He’s thrilled to be where he is, posted so near the movers-and-shakers; as soon as the photographer finishes snapping the picture, my father will be asking them a question or making a joke.
In recent photos, my dad is a different man. His face sags, his mouth is uncertain, and his eyes too often have a blank look.
Like him, other people living with advanced dementia are caught between worlds. They’re still linked to the glories of their pasts. Still tied to their homes, to material things that have meant something. To any evidence they’ve made an impact, left a mark.
“I was a founder,” my father will say about some small group he helped organize. Or, “Didn’t I have something to do with that?” about someone else’s success.
But he’s also withdrawing, turning inward. He’s readying for something else, whatever that is.
He’s seldom willing to talk about his own eventual demise. But now and then he’ll say there have been so many people he’s loved who are now gone. “If all those other people have done it,” he says, “I can too,” and I feel the same way.
As they slowly fade away, people like my father are reminders to the rest of us. Reminders to celebrate with them, to treasure their remaining days. Reminders of what we already know but sometimes forget in the day-to-day: to celebrate our own lives, to live them fully. Ubi sunt? they silently ask. Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?
This is the last Mr. D’s Wild Ride essay. Thank you so much for reading. If you missed the earlier essays and would like to see them, this link will take you to the archive, where the posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Thank you so much for sharing your precious and beautifully written essays/ thoughts.
Kia Kaha (stay strong)
Jennie, These essays are a treasure. I will indeed go back and read every one since I was a little late discovering them. We are so grateful for the trips and visits we had with Martha and Walt. Love to all your family as you continue on this long journey.....
Scottie Cannon