Comfort and Joy
/by Bethany Groff Dorau, Executive Director
It’s three days before Christmas and I’m feeling blue. Scratch that. It’s three days before Christmas and I’m grieving. If you are feeling unequivocally merry and bright, you might want to give this post a miss. If, on the other hand, you are feeling out of step with the glitter and glitz of the holiday season, like so many of us right now, you’re in good company.
On Monday, we lost Cathy Strauss. There should be a descriptor after her name. I should say, Cathy Strauss, past co-president of the Museum of Old Newbury, or Cathy Strauss, friend to me and many others, or Cathy Strauss, beloved sister, mother, aunt. Cathy Strauss, master of the cheese plate, the devilled egg, the pigs in blankets, the arched eyebrow, the hearty laugh, the witty quip. Cathy sallied forth into the office here with a shout of “hello, lovely ducklings!”, or “hello, beautiful people!”, exclamations of delight at our very existence. She set the tone for what this museum is at its best – part garden party and part disco inferno with fabulous art and excellent snacks. Cathy was very much at home at the Museum of Old Newbury. She had been a docent, a board member, and most recently, co-president. Her roots in Old Newbury go back centuries, a descendant of Hales and Littles and Tenneys and Poores. Like me, she grew up “away”, but made a life for herself here, embracing the history and memory of her family, and for both of us, this connection had led us to the Museum of Old Newbury, where our circles grew deeper and wider.
Cathy Strauss speaking at the 2021 Annual Meeting in the Perkins Mint at the Museum of Old Newbury.
In the first moments of awakening this morning, when things were both softer and clearer for me, I brought Cathy’s face into my mind’s eye. She came into focus with her sisters, soon joined by my friend who just lost her father, another whose mother is disappearing into Alzheimer’s, dear friends who have lost soul companions of all kinds. Then, the letting go, the hard morning light, the pressing obligations. I went outside with a handful of carrots and spent some quiet moments with the animals.
Death, in all its forms, is a universal human experience. In a way, it is the most present reality of our work at the Museum of Old Newbury. Every day, we are thinking about people who have died, organizing their possessions, dusting their relics, looking into their faces in paintings, statues, photographs. We are talking to their children and grandchildren about who they were and what they left behind. The museum itself is a place where people make friends and meet neighbors, and it follows naturally that the loss of members of our community is deeply felt here as well. We are all swept along together in a deep river of friendship, love, and loss.
At the intersection of Low Street and Rte. 1, I pulled up to a red light and found myself unable to control the tears that had been building all morning. I do not cry often, but when I do, it’s not pretty. A quick glance to my right confirmed that there was a woman in the car next to me, looking away. I sniffled. She looked over. She was crying too. The two of us, complete strangers, both wearing holiday sweaters and jaunty scarves, had a moment together weeping uncontrollably, and then, recognizing the ridiculousness of it all, laughing together at a stop light.
Cathy and her sister Beth share a secret at the Museum's 2022 Annual Meeting. Photo courtesy Bob Watts.
I took a detour after that. I drove down High Street into Newbury, pulled over in front of Coffin House, and crossed the street into the First Parish Burying Ground. I had a mission – I needed a picture of a stone for an upcoming story. But it was more than that. Standing among the people who have walked this bit of the earth over time comforts me. It reminds me that in our awareness of our mortality lies our essential humanness. Tonight, Ghlee Woodworth and I will lead a merry band of flashlight-wielding neighbors and friends through Oak Hill Cemetery on the longest night of the year. It will be dark and cold, but we will be together, travelling through time, lighting the path for each other, and celebrating our neighbors, living and dead.
I wish you comfort this holiday season, if you need it. If you have some to spare, share it with your neighbors. I will always smile when I think of Cathy, with her throaty chuckle and her perfect union of sass and class. We were lucky to be here with her.
For more information, see the obituary in the Newburyport Daily News.
