I don’t mean being a witness in the evangelical, testimonial sense,or in the legal way…but rather in your life as a person. One of my favorite quotes of all time (and one of Tom’s too) was in the movie Shall we Dance with Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. Adapted from an earlier Japanese film, it is the story of John Clark (Gere), a successful attorney and family man who questions his routine and daily life. While commuting, he repeatedly passes a dance studio, and sees the lovely instructor, Paulina (Lopez) in the window. Long story short, he secretly enrolls in dance classes, and his wife, Beverly (Sarandon) suspects he may be having an affair. Spoiler alert…needless to say, Beverly “busts” John during a dance competition and all is right with the world…but in the movie, she sums up marriage in a remarkable way.
“We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.”
While this concept was extremely meaningful to both of us, it has even more meaning to me now that I have lost Tom. My witnessing of his life for nearly forty years, not just my sharing it, has taken on a new importance to me. I want to journal what I know about him so my children and grandson will know even more about who he was. I talk about him because even though sometimes it may be painful to do so, to not mention his name, to not laugh or cry or be angry about things he (or we) said or did, would mean he wasn’t here…that because he is physically lost to us he did not exist. And that is just not the case.
I shared a lot in those years with Tom. Some things were terrifying, painful and tragic. More were happy, loving, joyful and exciting. But the sum of all of those events, those experiences, was my being a witness of his life from 1978 to 2018. And before we met, too, because of the tales he told (in retrospect, some of the tales were, perhaps, embellished to impress 😉, but nonetheless a part of who he was), the people he knew, and the relationships and events he experienced.
Don’t get me wrong…being a witness is something to do NOW. It tells someone you care, you notice, you are there and that he or she matters in this vast, busy, complicated world. Tom and I witnessed each other’s lives for many years. It is not just a “later” thing.
It is funny that I chose to write this today. I just looked at the date. I didn’t realize that today is March 7th, and that 49 years ago today, my very best friend, Patti, died three days before her twentieth birthday. Her life will always be remembered and was witnessed by those of us who knew her.
So, please, be a witness. Now. Whether it is witnessing a partner, a parent, a child or just a friend. “You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.”