A's email announcing your death shocked me to the core. It seems impossible. No one with your life force could be vanquished, at least not so abruptly.

I, for one, thought you one-of-a-kind. I told A. and J. that after you and I spent more time together, both with the family and on our own. I tried to describe you to friends who found it baffling that I, as an ex-wife, would sing your praises. Because, in America at least, genuine admiration is a rare response from an ex-wife on meeting and getting to know a new, or current wife. But you merited every accolade.

 "Who is this woman, and what's so special about her?"  my friends asked curiously, wanting to understand my enthusiastic assessment.

Finding the right words was difficult. It didn't begin to describe you to say, factually, that you were a Frenchwoman who became the third wife of my first husband. And it only caused glazed eyes and shaking heads to add, as if it would clarify anything, that he was the fifth and last of your husbands. Such designations were too confusing, too Louis Malle, and, in so many ways, so beside the point. To describe you that way was to get bogged down; the next step would have been to resort to graph paper, to draw a chart of extended relationships rather like diagramming a sentence so that the relationships could be comprehended, one to another, in a way that would have been totally incomprehensible without a visual aid.

None of that mattered in describing you. And only a fraction of my admiration for you was based on the obvious: your dry wit, the general warmth of your personality, your history of remarkable achievements (how many women with children does one meet who have sailed a small boat across an ocean?) 

No, what I wanted to communicate to my friends was this: what was singular about you was your ability to do the seemingly impossible -- to hold disparate, geographically-dispersed strands of family relationships together, an achievement that made your trans-Atlantic sailing feat look like nothing compared to the psychological, emotional and even logistical immensity of the matriarchal/management task you undertook, voluntarily, and sustained, over considerable time. 

The boldness of it, the limitless vision of it that laughed in the face of societal norms, the innate confidence that dismissed as details the difficulties that keep other people from even attempting such a goal, dazzled me. You were the first, and may well be the last new wife I have known who was determined not only to bring her husband's children into the fold, but also to insist on the inclusion of ex-wives and ex-husbands on every conceivable occasion -- holidays and vacations in addition to requisite graduations, weddings, christenings and funerals. 

I will tell your children all of this, M. - though I will not burden them with my additional opinion that your death is a genuine tragedy in all our lives: for you, because you deserved a long, happy ending to your life before your life actually ended; for your children and new granchild because they needed and deserved more years of your inspiration and belief in them as they carve out their own lives; for my son, A, because your positive, "yes you can" outlook as a mother figure reinforced, rather than sabotaging, my own message to him;  for J's aged mother, because you gave her fleeting hope that her own decline and death would not be lonely; and, finally, for your husbands, as well as for me, because you were the catalyst that gave us all hope that we might bring the alienated fragments of our families together again, not only to heal but to prosper.

Now that you are gone, who can take your place? No one, it seems, at least for now. For the indefinite future, there will be a familial void where you were -- physically, emotionally, and psychologically. In a way that is as it should be. Because you are irreplaceable.

In the future? A. might do it. There was a glimpse of that potential in him when he recognized D's suffering and did something concrete about it. But for A to step up to the plate, in terms of providing extended family glue on a regular basis, will take time --  time and effort that he may not be willing or able to expend until his own new family life is defined and settled.

D. shows real promise of growing into the role - his letter about you was an extraordinary achievement, as it would have been at his age in any case, but particularly in the immediacy of his grief. His heartfelt ode to you was fueled by the certainty of your love for him, and his for you, and by the clarity of perspective about priorities you gave him. His letter was dignified and mature and therefore heartbreaking in its poignancy. But D. is even younger than A. He has his fledgling life to lead; therefore, it would be unfair for him to shoulder your role at this point. ( I have the impression that your other children are unlikely candidates for this task, no matter what their other skills and gifts. But who knows? Maybe one of them will be moved in this direction.)

Logically, of course, it would be one of your husbands who would now step forward. I know; I can see that amused glint in your eye and hear that marvelous throaty laugh of yours. How could I not?  I remember the lunch when, over too little salad and too much wine, we attempted to assess their strengths and weaknesses as they might affect the good of the tribe. I will say no more. 

So it looks as though, this Christmas at least, it's down to me, M.  And I hope I am equal to the task. If I am able to do it, even as interim Maman, it will be because you showed me how. 

In other words M.: "Tu étais l'élément cohésif qui a réuni sa famille de membres disparates. Tu étais le vent sous leurs ailes; je ferai de mon mieux pour que je te serve de vent arrière."

Bon Voyage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHdKuu9482A&feature=related