Of Rivers and Religion Ch. 02

"I don't know if you've ever heard of this band -- I sort of doubt it -- they're pretty obscure, and this is almost 15 years old now, but I've always loved these guys. Sort of a cross between The Beatles and maybe somebody like Squeeze. Their name is Cotton Mather -- which, I find interesting in and of itself -- considering who the real "Cotton Mather" was!"

"And the songwriter, Robert Harrison -- I think he must be a lot smarter than I am, at least a lot more articulate, because I never knew what exactly I wanted to say to you, Lily, what I needed to say to you to set you free, but then there's this song, and I realized old Robert Harrison, he did... I think he saw you coming, Lily!"

"Anyway, ever since I met you, I haven't been able to keep it out of my head. I've been listening to it a lot lately, waiting patiently until the time was right for me to play it for you -- I knew that time would come eventually. There had to be a tonight!"

He cued up the tune, and the strains of this dreamy, kind of ethereal, high melody washed through the room, trickling down and over me, like a brook tumbling over rocks, falling gently toward a great river, and then slowly, languidly out to sea. The name of the song was "Lily Dreams On."

That was five years ago, and since that time that song has become a part of me, become embedded as deeply in my soul as anything I've ever thought, done, said, or, most importantly, dreamed. I long ago memorized the lyrics:

Lily I hope you picture me in your dreams

Put down your King James Bible

You don't need no kings

Close your eyes

Baby, I'll dry mine

Echoes through the phone

Far from this

Lily dreams on

Think back to fields of Catherine

You used to play

I swore I heard you laughing

And almost say

"Pull your morals down,

Take away the past,

And let the past be gone"

Far from this

Lily dreams on

Far from this

Lily dreams on

We drank more wine, had another wonderful dinner that Dave prepared, and I asked to hear that song two more times that same night. Then, we went to bed together and made love all night long. It was the last time we slept together.

That fall I started my job at the university, and I began dating other men, while Dave started his own relationship with a pretty professor -- a widowed, 50-something, Linguistic instructor named Martha May, with whom he'd already had an affair the year before I entered the university. This time things went a lot better. She soon moved into Dave's house, and then he asked her to marry him. And then Dave asked me... and I said "yes," and I walked him down the aisle.

For the past four years and half years, I've visited Dave and/or Martha at least once every week. Other than my own husband, they're my closest friends.

My father died the next year, suddenly from a heart attack. I was devastated, but so incredibly grateful that Dave and Martha joined me at the funeral mass, just as I had done for his mother's. I tried my best, probably unsuccessfully, to eulogize my Dad, but I couldn't help thinking that a lot of what I was saying was as true of Dave as it was of Dad.

And then a year after the funeral, I met Tyler Churchill, a graphic artist a couple years older than me who moved in to my building that year. Tyler is amazing. He's handsome, kind, loving, and brilliant. We began dating, fell in love, and within a year, we, too, were married. With my father gone, it only seemed appropriate: I asked Dave to walk me down the aisle.

That was two and a half years ago. And then, about six months ago when I turned 29, Tyler and I decided it was the right time to try to have children. Now, we're going have a baby boy, and we've already got the name picked out.

It seems as if I have lived two lives: the pre-Dave years, when I aspired to be an intellectual and a scholar and all that entails, and A.D. -- after Dave -- when I learned that all that intellectualism, all that scholasticism is just so much cerebral masturbation, ultimately designed to make you feel better about yourself because you haven't changed the world in quite the way you thought you would. Not that I don't love my job -- I do -- but you have to take everything with a grain of salt. Dave taught me that.

It is amazing to me that over a decade after I first met him and shared his bed, we grew to love each other the way that old, old friends do. Maintaining that love while we are both married to other people demanded a requisite set of skills.

I never forgot Dave's words to me, standing on that railroad bridge in St. Cloud, and because of those words, I've come to learn that love, real true love, regardless of whether it is platonic or romantic, requires the qualities of Dave's Mississippi River -- it has to be "timeless, nurturing, and honest." And so in an effort to be honest, it only seemed fair that both Martha and Tyler should be made fully aware of the five-year love affair that changed our lives.

Once we told each one in turn, I think that each of them became more in awe of our relationship than even we were. They both say that they've never seen two people that are not married to each other that are more comfortable being together than we are.

Of course, we also had to be honest with each other. And with that in mind, I realize now, all these years later, that in all the time I knew him, Dave Heard told me only one untruth, one lie. I suppose by most human standards that makes him the most honest person that I've ever heard of. But there is one thing that he said to me all those years ago that was absolutely false -- he said that no matter how long he lived he could never repay me for helping him.

That was, without question, a bald-faced lie, because he repaid me a million times over. He gave me everything that I have today -- definitely knowledge, even though he and I both know that some of it isn't worth the paper it's printed on; very possibly wisdom, which is, of course, invaluable, though I often doubt whether I possess any; and absolutely and positively, a job and a career.

But I also remembered that there was one other quality of Dave's river -- freedom. And love, like a river, has to set you free. So, more importantly than all of those other things that Dave gave me, he also gave me up -- gave me up, even though I knew he loved me. He set me free so that I could have what he was sure was a better life with someone else who would love me just as much as he did and for whole lot longer.

That's because Dave died six months ago. He had inoperable pancreatic cancer. Complications from the disease took him from us only one month after he was diagnosed. He was 70 years old.

I realize now that Dave knew where that drop of water was headed, long before it got there. He knew before he was "out to sea," before that day on the bridge in St. Cloud. That was his gift -- to see where we were all headed before we even started moving in that general direction.

Things happen for a reason, and I suppose that is as true for death as it is for anything else. Even though neither of us are particularly religious people, both Dave and I are mystics. How can you love a river if you're not?

That mysticism kind of makes me wonder why Dave died when he did. He said he could never repay his debt to me, but everyone knew it was the other way around. And then, when he did die, his death ensured that I had no chance to even begin repaying my debt to him.

Still, I guessed I could try. Even though I knew I would fail, I could try. So, yesterday, I made the first payment on that debt. I couldn't believe it! I got Dean Kurimay's and then the chancellor's approval! And I found out it really wasn't all that hard.

They'll hold the ceremony later this year, and we'll all be there -- Martha, Tyler, Dave's brother and sisters, and of course me and my son David. He should be a couple of months old by that time! Considering his name, I'm sure he'll be as excited as anyone when Helen C White Hall, the place where I first met him, is renamed for David H. Heard.