There are few pleasures greater than the one I experienced tonight-that of being in the company of so many people who share the most essential love - that of self-expression. I've often remarked that Maslov had it all wrong. Self acutalization should be a primary level on his hierarchy of needs. In the company tonight were poets, artists, writers, a well known literary theorist, among others. The occasion was a reading of poetry by Sandra M. Gilbert, a woman known to most students of English by her work A Madwoman in the Attic, which was written with Susan Gubar and is still considered one of the foremost voices on feminist literary theory. The fact that she was a poet as well was almost an added  blessing. Indeed she is a poet of great talent and wit, as well as grace and skill. She gave us a great deal in her two days at the University of South Alabama. She began her introduction to the university with a talk on grief, mourning and death in American culture, and her comments were profound and moving, thought provoking and penetrating. Her observations stem from a life lived richly and with enormous sensitivity and her writing is informed by her work in literary theory as well as her vast outreach and influence within the world of English studies and her traveling between not only the two coasts of the US but also her immersion in life in Europe, Paris specifically. Her writing took an important turn, however, with the event of her huband's wrongful death, which became the title of one of her more recent works, and her experiences with her mother's death at a ripe old age and the grief that has been her constant companion since then. Even though Sandra has moved on to other loves and other partners in life, she has continued to experience the grief and mourning that loving someone eventually brings.

I have lived most of my adult life bemoaning my own mother's death at age 39. I have used my mother's tragic death as an excuse, a reason or an impetus for most of the turns and twists that my life has taken. I have known others who have experienced what I call "necessary losses" and I have known others who have experienced loss that cannot be termed necessary in any way, shape or form. When I was thinking about the ideas that Sandra presented to us in her talk Monday night I was wondering how to balance the loss and grief, the mourning and social comfort or discomfort that she talks about with the people I have known who have had other not so easily defined losses. For instance, one of my neighbors in North Carolina was the "widow" of an MIA in Vietnam, and for 15 years she had not known what happened to her husband. By the time I met her she had been engaged in a prolonged fight with the government over whether her husband could even be classified as dead, MIA or whatever, and she had raised her three children not knowing where her husband was, if he was alive or dead, and her only victory was in seeing his name on the VietNam memorial. She knew that he had been shot down in Laos at a time when we weren't even supposed to be IN LAOs, and she knew that the likelyhood of the government even telling the truth about his capture and/or death was remote. What hell. What HELL!

I knew others whose husbands had committed suicide, others whose husbands had beat them, others whose husbands had simply disappeared. I know women today who never knew their mothers, women who don't have fathers and whose mothers have been dead since they were children. I know a woman right at this moment who is battling cancer and whose own mother has turned her back on her because she is afraid of the reality that Sandra writes about, that reality of death, of loss, of grief. And Sandra has the courage to face these demons and call them by their name. The women I know who are living these personal hells are all calling these demons by their names. They are the lucky ones. The ones who are unlucky are the ones who accept the social contract that says we are supposed to be "happy, till death us do part, pretty, smart, rich, successful, two beautiful children, a house in the suburbs, two cars in the driveway, money in the bank" and so on.

If I had any wisdom to share from this it's long since gone as the hour is late. Maybe tomorrow I'll remember what else I wanted to say. Except this: I'm grateful for the opportunity to be with these artists and writers in this great community I've been lucky to be involved in at the University of South Alabama. And so oftern it is Dr. Sue Walker who is the energy behind all that. Thanks, Sue. For a Foley girl, you've done well. Size nine shoes and all!

12:30:49 AM