Words for Claire's Life: The Dream Never Ends

Last week we gathered in celebration of Claire's life and my former English teacher, Clyde Curley, wrote a piece that was included in the eulogy delivered by Kate Lore. He has graciously allowed its publication in this blog and I am especially grateful to share it with our friends and family that could not attend. His words are as follows:

 “And though she be but little, she is fierce.”
 

 In Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Hermia is the character who is perhaps most put-upon and most disadvantaged by the circumstances in which she finds herself. At the beginning, she is ordered by her father to marry a man she does not love, and she is instructed by the prince of Athens to turn away, on pain of death, from the man she wishes to marry. To escape these decrees, she and her lover, Lysander, flee to an enchanted forest outside the city, where things only worsen. As a result of the meddling of fairies who live in the wood, Lysander abandons her, as does her best friend from childhood, Helena. As Helena runs away from the shorter Hermia, she taunts her, saying, “though she be but little, she is fierce.” Hermia is left to wander alone in the dark and the unknown, desperately seeking her friends and never giving up hope that these misfortunes are a just dream from which she will awaken to find the confusion rectified. Of course, she does. Partly it’s because she doesn’t give in to her fears but keeps her spirits high. Partly it’s because Oberon, the king of the fairies recognizes the mistakes Puck, the agent of discord, has made, and sets things right. And while the play is not explicit on this point, I believe it’s also because deep down she knows that love will conquer all. The story turns on magic, of course, but it’s the magic of love. Love reconciles Hermia with her father, restores her friendship with Helena, causes the prince to rescind the death sentence, and brings the joyful conclusion of marriages all around, including that of Hermia to Lysander.

Shakespeare’s wisdom is wide and it is deep. He does not deny or ignore death, but he does deny death’s finality in the carrying on of the human spirit. This is most apparent in “Romeo and Juliet,” the tragedy that is a companion to the comedy of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” As with Claire, young people die before they have a chance to savor life fully. But their love lives after, reconciling the warring factions of Verona and healing the community. “Romeo and Juliet” is a tragedy because two young people were born into circumstances beyond their control. Sadly, Claire, too, was disadvantaged by circumstances. Happily, she shared her month of life, fiercely, with those who loved her. “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” Laura chose these words as her daughter’s motto wisely, and she took them from a story that asserts that love prevails over discord, over death.

Earlier in the scene where Helena utters these words, she reflects on the closeness of her childhood friendship with Hermia, the two of them

“Both warbling of one song, both in one key,
As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,
Had been incorporate. So we grow together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart.”

Our bodies matter, but our hearts matter more, and I imagine Claire dreamed of the sweet faces and warm bodies filling her life as she was held close and cherished. I imagine she dreams still. The dream never ends. Shakespeare is still there, and his vision is alive, just as Claire will stay alive within all of you, in your dreams.

- Clyde Curley