Thursday night
Sheraton Hotel, Chicago
Dear Hugh,
How is it possible, after a lifetime of friendship, that you
have simply disappeared, my brother? I wander through my days
searching for your grin, the way you cock your head when listening,
the quality of your voice as singular as the swirls in your fingertips.
I see your son, your wife, our parents, our siblings, your friends,
and I recognize the look in their eyes, too.
We were all in mid-sentence with you, Hugh, when you died on
the operating table after 23 years of successfully staring down
cancer. Your record of overcoming the odds had left us thinking
not about your vulnerabilities but instead about your invincibility.
Nobody could possibly count all of the hospital stays, emergency
room visits, surgeries, chemotherapies, radiation treatments and
follow-up appointments that you endured. We're grappling to learn
how to deal with the one that you couldn't.
This weekend, your other two sisters and I have met up in Chicago
to travel together to Notre Dame, the place that has drawn you
repeatedly throughout your life. Tomorrow we'll join your wife
and other family members, too -- all of us, in our own ways, seeking
to wake up the echoes. As absurd as I know it sounds, I can't
help thinking that if there's any place on earth where you might
still roam, this would be it.
Friday night
South Bend
Dear Hugh,
I hadn't been on campus in many years, and never on a home football
weekend. Incessant rain and wind and lightning prevented me from
sitting at the Grotto, as I'd planned, for as long as it took
until I felt your presence. By the time the sun broke through,
we got caught up in the magnificent sight and sound of the Notre
Dame Marching Band winding its way across a parking lot, instruments
flashing to match the dome behind us. I thought of you as a grade-school
kid at a Notre Dame Alumni picnic, winning one of the most prized
possessions of your life: a plaque with a bit of the gold from
the dome. And of course I thought of you here as an undergraduate.
During spring break of 1975, you wrote me that "[S]ome of the
people around here had an opportunity to do a lot of gallavanting
this week, but I was lucky too -- this week provides me with time
to do a lot of what I will term relevanting -- walks around peaceful
lakes, starting in confusion and interior noise, and ending in
submission to Notre Dame's peace and quiet. There are few sources
on earth of such calm as the Grotto at 2 a.m., or the reflection
of the dome in the lake."
At the pep rally, I tried to turn loose of the secret hope I'd
long harbored that one day I'd go to one with you. After the rally,
we went to our cousin's home right off campus; they had a picture
of you on their refrigerator -- a picture our cousin says has
been there ever since you stayed with them a few years back.
Good night for now, Hugh. You know, though, that I also listen
in my dreams.
Saturday night
South Bend
Dear Hugh,
If you had anything to do with today's weather, we are most grateful.
We were told that October on campus could feel like the dead of
winter; instead, yesterday's rains left us with warm and crystalline
skies.
I should have known that the Grotto would be a popular tourist
spot, so I had to settle for a few minutes of silence within the
commotion, and I fulfilled the promise to our mother that I'd
say an "Ave" for her. A tall, graying man beside me was trying
to wipe away tears as fast as they splashed down his face, and
I'm embarrassed to admit that I found his grief comforting; we
weren't all just tourists here today.
We lingered outside Dillon Hall for quite awhile before the game.
A couple of band members gallantly paused in the doorway long
enough to pose with sister #2. You would've loved the moment.
It was easy to imagine you, nearly 30 years earlier, bounding
down these same steps, so full of promise and plans.
Many told us that marching into the stadium with the band would
be a memory we'd treasure. My sisters and I chose instead to be
among the first to enter the stadium, watching the team practice,
enjoying the gradual building of the crowd and anticipation. Two
brothers from the south side of Chicago sat beside me: also subway
alumni, also attending their first home game, also the grateful
recipients of an alumnus' tickets (in their case, from a boss;
in ours, from you and our dad). Though no one in their family
has attended Notre Dame, they, too, had grown up knowing that
their father would be pacing in front of a crackling radio every
football Saturday, and that his post-game mood would have everything
to do with the outcome of the game; they, too, had caught the
bug early themselves -- remembered "Did he say IIIIN-complete
or AAAND complete?" as the closest thing to conversation allowed
except during commercials--and were inhaling everything about
the atmosphere.
It turns out that Notre Dame Stadium on a home game day -- particularly
one where our side gave us so much to cheer about -- is not a
very good place for listening. But it's perfect for watching possibilities
fulfilled and dashed, the razor edge between agony and ecstasy,
the hundreds of personal victories and defeats that won't make
the record books or news. Never have I appreciated as much as
today how football can be a fast-motion tour through life.
Sunday night
In the air, heading west
Dear Hugh,
We went to Mass at Sacred Heart this morning. On a weekend where
every moment is a memory I'll treasure, the most angelic was hearing
the Alma Mater in the Basilica. ("Proudly in the heavens gleaming
gold and blue"). I couldn't look at the altar without remembering
you, the recent graduate, exchanging vows with your bride, looking
for all the world like someone for whom joy, success and fulfillment
of dreams would come easily. But maybe I should've read your words
a little more carefully while you were a student here: In comparing
California to the Great Lakes area, you said, "Here, the tree
dies, only to blossom more brilliantly in the spring; there, the
tree is never challenged with the despair of the colorless winter,
never having to turn inward and rely on its base wood, thus never
having to prove that it's bigger than winter, that it can, and
will, prevail."
We had to tear ourselves away from campus, and then away from
each other, in time to catch our separate flights. Now the weekend
is a blur of mental images I'm allowing to flip forward and backward
in my mind.
I didn't hear you, Hugh, all weekend. But yesterday, I held back
as long as I could after the game. In the amazing hush of the
nearly empty stadium, surrounded by legends long dead, in the
dissipating light, you certainly didn't feel very far away. And
now I'm pretty sure you smile at the inscription we chose for
your grave marker, to give the passerby some hint of the man who
lies there: "Onward to victory."
* * *
Mickey Reilly is the sister of Hugh E. Reilly '76, and the daughter
of Joseph Reilly '48. Hugh died February 20, 2002, at age 47,
in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was a solar engineer for
Sandia National Laboratories. Mickey and her two sisters attended
the ND-Stanford game October 5, 2002.
(March 2004)
