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Friday
Julia and I are currently enjoying a mid-fall break in Ljubljana, where we have been teaching. Yesterday was Reformation Day, when the Slovenians (to quote Wikipedia) “commemorate the 16th century religious, cultural and political movement that played a key part in the development and promotion of Slovenian language and national identity.” Then today they celebrate All Saints Day, with families tending to the gravesites of departed loved ones.
We will do our own remembering today. Why Ljubljana is a special place to remember our oldest son Justin requires some explaining.
We brought our family here for a Fulbright year in 1987-88 (when it was still Yugoslavia) and then again in 1994-95. Our children attended the international programs in Slovenian schools, and Justin especially treasured the special passes that children get for the Ljubljana bus system. He reveled in the freedom it gave him, and he had all the routes memorized, making a point of traveling to both ends of every line by the end of our stay here. (I think there are 20 or so lines.) He also loved his classes at Gimnazia Bežigrad, and he enjoyed being the starring pitcher for a local baseball team, which won a competitive tournament in the Netherlands.
Therefore, when he died almost 25 years ago, we set up a memorial scholarship in his name. For 17 years now (except for the Covid years) we have been bringing Slovenian students to St. Mary’s College of Maryland and sending St. Mary’s students to Ljubljana. Up until we retired, the Slovenian students lived with us so we came to see them as family.
We reconnect with them when we return and—this is the point I want to make—we see them having the future that Justin didn’t have. I didn’t anticipate this added benefit when we set up the scholarship, which we established out of gratitude to Slovenia, but that’s how it has worked out.
Yesterday, for instance, we met up with Nina Kremžar, who was an English-Japanese double major when she attended St. Mary’s ten years ago. Nina credits the creative writing class she took at St. Mary’s (with poet and my former colleague Jeff Coleman) with jumpstarting her own creative writing, and she has gone on to win a major creative writing competition.
Nina has since published a book of poetry (the award for winning the competition), along with a book or short stories, and she is currently working on a children’s book. (All this in addition to teaching high school English and competing for Slovenia’s national curling team.) I told Nina how meaningful it was for to learn how the scholarship, which wouldn’t have existed had Justin not died, is having these ripple effects.
To remember Justin and all those we have loved and lost, here’s Christina Rossetti’s “Remember Me.” I imagine Justin addressing it to us and telling us it’s okay if we forget him for a while. We are just to use occasions like this and poems like this to remember “the vestige of the thoughts” he has left with us and to smile.
Remember Me
By Christina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
