On Living with the Loss of a Son in Wartime. Written and first published on Memorial Day, 2003

My name, “Gerard Van der Leun,” is an unusual one. So unusual, I’ve never met anyone else with the same name. I know about one other man with my name, but we’ve never met. I’ve seen his name in an unusual place. This is the story of how that happened.

It was an August Sunday in New York City in 1975. I’d decided to bicycle from my apartment on East 86th and York to Battery Park at the southern tip of the island. I had nothing else to do and, since I hadn’t been to the park since moving to the city in 1974, it seemed like a destination that would be interesting. Just how interesting, I had no way of knowing when I left.

August Sundays in New York can be the best times for the city. The psychotherapists are all on vacation — as are their clients and most of the other professional classes. The city seems almost deserted, the traffic light and, as you move down into Wall Street and the surrounding areas, it becomes virtually non-existent. On a bicycle, you own the streets that form the bottom of the narrow canyons of buildings where, even at mid-day, it is still cool with shade. Then you emerge from the streets into the bright open space at Battery Park.

Tourists are lining up for Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. A few people are coming and going from the Staten Island Ferry terminal. There are some scattered clots of people on the lawns of Battery Park. Everything is lazy and unhurried.

I’d coasted most of the way down to the Battery that day since, even though it appears to be flat, there is a very slight north-to-south slope in Manhattan. I arrived only a bit hungry and thirsty and got one of the dubious Sabaretts hot dogs and a chilled coke from the only vendor working the park.

We were in the midst of what now can be seen as “The Long Peace.”

The twin towers loomed over everything, thought of, if they were thought of at all, as an irritation in that they blocked off so much of the sky. It was 1975 and, Vietnam notwithstanding, America was just about at the midway point between two world wars. Of course, we didn’t know that at the time. The only war we knew of was the Second World War and the background hum of the Cold War. It was a summer Sunday and we were in the midst of what now can be seen as “The Long Peace.” . . . .

Continued now at The Name in the Stone

When my body won’t hold me anymore
And it finally lets me free
Will I be ready?
When my feet won’t walk another mile
And my lips give their last kiss goodbye
Will my hands be steady when I lay down my fears, my hopes, and my doubts?
The rings on my fingers, and the keys to my house
With no hard feelings

When the sun hangs low in the west
And the light in my chest won’t be kept held at bay any longer
When the jealousy fades away
And it’s ash and dust for cash and lust
And it’s just hallelujah
And love in thought, love in the words
Love in the songs they sing in the church
And no hard feelings

Lord knows, they haven’t done much good for anyone
Kept me afraid and cold
With so much to have and hold

When my body won’t hold me anymore
And it finally lets me free
Where will I go?
Will the trade winds take me south through Georgia grain?
Or tropical rain?
Or snow from the heavens?
Will I join with the ocean blue?
Or run into a savior true?
And shake hands laughing
And walk through the night, straight to the light
Holding the love I’ve known in my life
And no hard feelings

Lord knows they haven’t done much good for anyone
Kept me afraid and cold
With so much to have and hold
Under the curving sky
I’m finally learning why
It matters for me and you
To say it and mean it too
For life and its loveliness
And all of its ugliness
Good as it’s been to me

I have no enemies
I have no enemies
I have no enemies
I have no enemies

[THIS SITE — AND ITS ARCHIVES — WILL BE MAINTAINED FOR TWO YEARS FROM THIS DATE. AFTER THAT “DIGITAL DUST TO DIGITAL DUST.”

BTW: I’VE NEVER STOPPED LOVING YOU, JUSTINE, MY DAUGHTER. No hard feelings. Remember me, from time to time, to my granddaughters.]

I’m planning to shutter this blog next week or the week after. I’m not sure of the exact date. But I’ve been working hard on the poetry book, and have completed most of it. So I’m getting close to the point where I’ll be doing what Gerard asked, which was that the blog should only remain up for two years after his death.

It’s going to be difficult. Probably that’s part of the reason I’ve been dragging my heels. But I’m glad you have the other site going, and I hope to keep that site posted on anything relevant – including, of course, when I publish the poetry book. Editing Gerard’s poetry has been a fascinating task, as you might imagine.

NOTE: Something is wrong with the display of comments. They’re not showing. I wrote to the host when it began on Monday and I have yet to get a reply, although I wrote several times. This is highly unusual because ordinarily they are very responsive.

I’ll probably try again, but I don’t know whether I’ll get an answer. Of course, pretty soon this blog will be history anyway, and I’ve noticed that many of the commenters have switched over to the new site.

As I said the other day, I’m keeping this one going for a little while longer in order to copy the poetry for the poetry book. But I probably won’t post too much here anymore. If I have an announcement to make, I’ll let DT, the administrator at the new site, know.

And now that I’ve written the above, guess what? When I checked to see how this post is displaying, comments were showing again. So for the moment it’s working just fine.

Go figure.

[NOTE: This is a repeat of a post I published a few days after Gerard’s death two years ago. I plan to take the blog offline in a couple of weeks.]

It’s a daily voice, like a friend you talk to on the phone every day. The closest thing to this kind of writing prior to blogging was the daily columnist (when did those go out? or did they ever exist?).

You get to thinking a blogger is someone you know, and although the conversations are a mite one-sided, they’re not totally one-sided because many bloggers interact in the comments as well. And then there’s always email contact, which makes the blogger much more easily accessible than the olden-day columnist.

The writing voices of bloggers are highly idiosyncratic as well. It’s not newspaper reporting, after all, with its pretense of objectivity and impersonality. Also, there’s no middleman or editor. The blogger is all of that rolled into one.

Some bloggers are far more personal in their writing and disclosure than others. Gerard was that way, and his writing packed a huge wallop. His voice was so bold and distinctive, and his range immense. His was a high-wire act.

Then again, even openness is hardly full disclosure, and bloggers intentionally shape the personae they project. That’s why meeting a blogger in the real world usually causes at least some feeling of surprise, because the writer is not the person although the person is definitely the writer. People contain multitudes, and Gerard was especially multitudinous.

When a blogger dies and that writing voice is stilled, there’s often a pang very much like losing a very good friend in real life, a friend with a major daily presence. The blogger has been churning out copy like a machine, usually every day and probably several times a day, often for years or decades – entertaining readers, amusing readers, maybe even inspiring readers or comforting readers or making them consider something new.

And then suddenly: silence. Utter utter silence.

It’s a very dramatic reminder that death is an abrupt and reluctant parting as far as our lives on earth go, and how powerless all of us are in its face. I knew Gerard very very well in what he liked to call the world dimensional, and the grief I feel is immense. But you, his readers, most of whom only knew his words on a screen, feel grief too at the loss of the completely unique original human being known as Gerard Vanderleun.

Gerard left instructions to keep this blog online for two years after his death, and then to let it go dark. However, I’m not planning to keep to the exact date of his death, which was January 27. The blog will probably continue to appear for a little while after that, but just a little while – perhaps a few weeks. I haven’t yet made the cancellation arrangements with the host, for example.

But there’s another reason as well, which is that I’ve been working on Gerard’s poetry book, and I need to refer to the blog in order to copy some of his poems that appear here. I’ve done a lot of the work on the book already but I still have more to do. I’ll keep you posted on the schedule.

If I have announcements to make about either of the books or anything else related to Gerard’s work, I plan to get in touch with the new blog you’ve set up and inform you that way. One of the ideas I have is that I’d like to promote Gerard’s essay book a bit more and see if I can reach customers who are as yet unfamiliar with his writing. So far, most everyone who bought the book was already a reader of his. I’ve gotten in touch with someone who will be helping me try to expand his readership, and it probably will involve an ebook. Gerard didn’t much care for ebooks and neither do I, and most of his readers seemed to want something more solid, long-lasting, and traditional. But I’ve been told that, for the purpose of trying to reach a larger audience these days, an ebook is a must.

If you have any suggestions regarding this, please email me either at Gerard’s email address or my own, which is jaybean33@yahoo.com .