Rest in Peace: Eleanor Dale Davis

Dale at Home

I hope I will be forgiven for indulging myself in speaking with love of our dear Dale, who left this earth just over a day ago. May she rest in peace and may all whose lives she touched find solace in their memories of a remarkable woman, an indomitable spirit.

When death comes to someone we love, there are so many conflicting emotions that it’s hard to sort them all out. If that person has endured a long struggle with illness, we can certainly take some comfort in knowing that they will no longer suffer.

There is an almost surreal quality to this loss, an inability to comprehend that the spirit, however vibrant it has always been, has moved from the body to another realm. Whatever our religious beliefs, we balk at that passing on to someplace we cannot go just yet. We feel bereft. We feel alone and confused, moved to a sadness that takes our breath away. We deny this new reality. We grieve.

There is, too, even anger at the loss of the physical presence. There is that one more thing we would want to say, one more kiss or hug to give, one more laugh to share. One more moment, please, just one more. Why are we denied this one last connection in this life? Why have we been left without this presence that has left us? Whether expected or not, at the moment of the leaving, we feel the shock of loss.

As days pass, what do we do with the grief that steals up at the most unexpected moments, bringing physical anguish for the hole left in our lives. Just when we think we’ve grappled with the loss, seeming to have achieved a sort of stoicism, the tears come unbidden, spilling down our cheeks like a sudden rain.

We use the phrase “larger than life” about some personalities. When we begin to cope with our loss, we learn what these words can mean in a new context. The one who is gone returns to us in memories of shared experiences, in the stories we recount of times gone by. The spirit echoes for each of us in a different way, but it brings with it again that confusing mix of loss and comfort. We laugh with a memory, only to shed a tear with the laughter.

Having just lost a dear friend and an extraordinary personality, I find myself writing this to attempt to cope with all these feelings. I can almost hear her dulcet voice, saying “Darling, just do whatever makes you feel better and, by the way, have a drink for me.” I know she would encourage all of us who loved her in life to love each other now. She would want us to celebrate her life rather than mourn it.

She was, in fact, larger than life. As one of her many friends points out, she was one of many people’s “two or three best friends.” She nurtured young people seeking a career in performance. She encouraged mature performers as they continued the pursuit of their careers. She loved her city, New York, and she loved the theatre with passion. With all her years of experience, she remained unjaded in the face of talent and its expression in every form of art. She had the hard-nosed wisdom of a veteran and the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a novice. She told me last week that a friend told her once that she was “all ages at once.” She was, indeed.

She embraced a legion of friends, maintaining close relationships over decades, also touching people’s hearts within hours of their meeting her. Through the long months in and out of the hospital this past year, friends came, they called, they sent cards and flowers, presents that might please her. A friend from California gave her a pedicure in the hospital and those perfect pink toenails were a source of joy that she remarked on more than once. Other friends sent artwork made especially for her. They sent creams to soothe her skin, perfumes to transform a medicinal environment with the scents of gardens.

Shortly after her unanticipated and mercifully quick death, hospital personnel, some of whom had just met her within the week, came by her room to express their sense of loss and to speak of her kindness to them and her humor. They were moved by her endurance, the courage that spurred her to respond to the encouragement of her wonderful physical therapist, Golda, and get into the wheelchair that last day.

She took a short ride through the hospital halls, greeted along the way by staffers who had come to know her through her stays there. We stopped for a time at a wall of windows where she looked at the skyline of her beloved New York under a perfect spring sky the color of her favorite seas in Greece, a sky animated by perfectly fluffy white clouds sailing by.

Teddy and Dale

She napped a bit, waking to talk of her boundless love for her nephew, Teddy, and “her babies,” his daughters, Corrie and Gracie. Moments before she passed away so suddenly, she spoke to her dear business partner and friend of decades, Harris, wishing him a good weekend. Then, too soon, she was gone without warning.

A few days ago, glancing out the window of her hospital room, she said: “I want to talk to my Mama.” It is my belief that she is with her Mama now, basking in the assurance of the deep and abiding love of Eleanor Hobson Davis, from whom her first name came, our Eleanor Dale Davis.

I am reminded of what Dale wrote about her mother in a little book we published in 2008: “When I am told that I remind someone of my mama, I know I am a pale carbon copy, but humbled and thrilled to have even a trace of whatever it was that made her who she was.”

Rest in peace, dear Dale, who was never a pale carbon copy, rather a woman who lived life in glorious color and with gusto. We who grieve your passing from this place would be humbled and thrilled to have even a trace of whatever it was that made you who you were.