Entering an Oasis
My visits with Irv, before and after his stroke, were intellectually centered oases where he spoke and, thirstily, I learned. Make no mistake. He was the prime actor. Howdy Doody could have been sitting in my chair and exponentially increased his understanding of the world. It is possible that for the past sixteen months, each new heavenly day has begun with God and Irv discussing the most intricate mechanisms of the universe. For the last three days, the Stokeses have been reunited, and Mrs. Stokes (she never was Dorothea, or “Dot,” as Irv addressed her), hovering nearby, eager to resume serving her man. It is irrefutable testimony to the extreme modesty of Mrs. Stokes that she seldom spoke, barely aloud when she did. I can’t prove it. But my strongest suspicion is that Mrs. Stokes was a vigorous intellectual match for her husband, his lofty and more public encomiums notwithstanding. Always, he was being hailed by those who admire what few people are capable of mastering. True to his vivacious personality, there was no shortage of photographic evidence of his academic and scientific accomplishments. The only photos I ever saw of Mrs. Stokes were with her family. Her tender tones were as soft as a single drop of uncertain rain on a sturdy window pane that could have withstood a hurricane without flinching.
Why Home Was a Sanctuary
It is not hyperbolic to describe the Stokes home as a sanctuary. Just as the lights are lowered in your church or synagogue in moments of deepest meditation, their home always was sparsely lighted. More was not necessary. That created a mood that may have made learning more receptive. Surely Irv never would have phrased it this way, but the tone of conversation seemed solemn, and the subject, often secrets of the universe that would intrigue a scientist fairly raging with curiosity, completed the portrait. At every visit, Mrs. Stokes remained steps away, never joining us at the table when we met in the dining room, and never in Irv’s pocket-sized den when he was amusing himself with his beloved popular motion pictures from the past. Irv obviously was in declining health, but I never heard a word about her condition. Only from her loyal, unspoken actions could anyone make even an abstract judgment.
To the final day of Irv’s life, Mrs. Stokes, his partner, carried out her wifely chores in silence, never a sound from her lips or her whispering feet. A wisp of a woman, ironically she seemed both ubiquitous and absent throughout Irv’s period of infirmity. She was there to aid and to ease, but you never heard her arrive and you never noticed when she left. Only when one of their two daughters was in the house was the volume turned up, but slightly. After Irv died sixteen months ago, Mrs. Stokes carried on, as before. She drove herself short distances. Head down in her customary modest stance, she gave scarcely any overt sign of her grieving. On the Sabbath, in her closely bonded synagogue community, she was invited to take every meal with other families every week. Meanwhile, her reputation for dessert baking only expanded during her period of grief. With the sweetest irony that a religious Jew can know, she passed away during the past Sabbath.
Postscript
For Irv and Dorothea Stokes, their last brilliant moment toegther in the sunshine was three years ago this spring, the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of their East Coast wedding. What a marriage they made, what an example they were for those who strive to live honorably and productively.