On Claude Debussy’s birthday anniversary, I remember one of my radio listeners, now no longer with us, and her fondness for “Clair de lune.”
The station I was with at the time had offered, as a fundraising incentive during one of its pledge drives, opportunities for contributors to select a host with whom to co-present two hours of their favorite music. That’s how I met Margaret. Margaret was a retired high school English teacher of 24 years. She was in her early 80s then. It’s been my experience that I get along very well with 80-year-olds. One of her selected pieces was “Clair de lune,” which she said reminded her of her mother, since her mother used to play it on the piano.
We had a lot in common, including the fact that she lived in my hometown of Easton, PA, and the shared experience of the radio show began a four-year friendship, during which she wrote to me frequently. I responded a little less frequently, but not shamefully so, as can sometimes be the case. She would send me photos of her garden, and the animals that visited, and relate her experiences and impressions of the seasons and her favorite places. She was a delightful person. It was a good, old-fashioned, snail-mail correspondence, nothing electronic. I wasn’t even on Facebook yet.
The last time I saw her was on a visit to her home in 2012, after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness. She tried to encourage me to take whatever I wanted, but I had a hard time with it. I was not in an acquisitive mood. Also, I felt as if I took something it would be an admission that it really was the end. Finally, after having been urged repeatedly, I selected a rolled-up copy of a poster of a panoramic view of Easton in autumn, of which she had several. She enjoyed quite a view from the window of her living room herself.
Margaret died nine days later, in December 2012. I still have her letters and a mug she gave me, with a reproduction of Franz Marc’s “The Dream.” We were both fans of the Blue Rider school and had visited an exhibition, separately, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Ironically, my mother is buried probably within a mile of her home.
This is no reflection on Margaret (and I think she would find that aside amusing), but here’s an abridged version of Debussy’s enduring piano piece, played for an 80-year-old elephant.
This was the version we played on the show.
Deleted segment from Disney’s “Fantasia,” with an orchestral version conducted by Leopold Stokowski
Happy birthday, Claude Debussy, and thinking of you, Margaret, wherever you are.
