9-16-08
September 16th, 2008Dear friends of Marcel,
The following obituary was written for the St. John’s College Newspaper by Kee Zublin, Marcel’s friend and classmate: Thank you, Kee and all of you who have been able to express so beautifully what we are all still trying to figure out:
There’s a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez entitled “ The Handsomest Drowned Sailor in the World” that I never understood till the morning I read Veronica Fremont’s account of her son Marcel’s burial.
Marcel David Fremont (SF01) died on June 25, 2008 when his motorcycle collided with a truck in northern Montana. He was traveling around the country to visit family and friends before he was to begin his doctoral studies in neuroscience at Washington University, St. Louis.
At Marcel’s burial, Veronica describes how the mourners gathered around the hole to toss in a few mementos: a $2 bill, a sprouting potato. Then, as the attendants began to lower the pine box, one whispered “It doesn’t fit.” Attendants and foreman cranked the coffin back to the surface, and friends and family began stripping off pieces. The bereaved removed poles, bolts and blocks as they tried three times to consign Marcel’s mortal remains to the earth.
One of those present commented “He wasn’t ready to go.” Marcel’s father, Rick Fremont, countered that Marcel was a “connoisseur of awkward situations” and that he knew his friends and family “weren’t ready to let him go.”
Although I was not in that group, as I read Veronica’s account I could picture why Marcel’s coffin wouldn’t fit: He was simply too big for any hole in the ground. Everything about Marcel was too big to go easily into the ground: his shoulders were too broad, his legs too long, his oversized heart and brain too expansive.
And suddenly, I understood Marquez’s story: A drowned man washes to the shore of a tiny island village. The man is large, so large that the children who find him at first think he’s a ship or a whale. When they lay him in one of the village homes, there is barely enough room on the floor. Even when they merely look at the man, there is “no room for him in their imagination.”
The villagers grow to love the man, whom they name Esteban, and so they hold “the most splendid funeral they could conceive of for an abandoned drowned man.” And, as they carry him to the sea, they become “aware for the first time of the desolation of their streets, the dryness of their courtyards, the narrowness of their dreams as they face the splendor and beauty of their drowned man.”
They let him go without an anchor so that he could come back if he wished, and they all held their breath for the fraction of centuries the body took to fall into the abyss. They did not need to look at one another to realize that they were no longer all present, that they never would be. But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors so that Esteban’s memory could go everywhere without bumping into beams…and they were going to break their backs digging for springs among stones and planting flowers on the cliffs so that in future years at dawn the passengers on great liners would awaken, suffocated by the smell of gardens on the high seas, and the captain would have to come down from the bridge in his dress uniform…and, pointing to the promontory of roses on the horizon, he would say in fourteen languages, look there, where the wind is so peaceful now that it’s gone to sleep beneath the beds, over there, where the sun’s so bright that the sunflowers don’t know which way to turn, yes, over there, that’ s Esteban’s village.
My friend Marcel’s life was too brief. But in 29 years, he knew and loved many people, and it is indeed true that where he has been we look around and realize that we are no longer all present and never will be. It is also true that we can fill the big empty space he left behind with something beautiful.
To make room for Marcel’s memory, we can build wider doors and higher ceilings, live less confined lives, think bigger thoughts. And we can honor our friend by emulating his insatiable curiosity, searching in unlikely places for water to bring forth flowers. Marcel could always see the hidden potential of little things.
He was big that way.
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In Marcel’s memory, Veronica and Rick, and brother Nathan, have established “The Marcel Fremont Fund.” The fund, administered by the Oak Park, River Forest Community Foundation, will donate small amounts of money for causes related to education, arts, sciences, recreation, and the environment. Those interested in contributing can visit www.oprf.org. A donation can be made on-line by filling the “in honor of” line with the words “the Marcel Fremont Fund.”
