the guest book

In 2011 a strange series of events and meetings brough my family to lunch at the home of John and Lady Carolyn Warren on the Highclere Estate in England, the estate where sits the castle of “Downton Abbey.”  Lady Carolyn is the sister of the current Lord Carnarvon.  Carolyn and John’s house is on a small lake on the vast property.  

John Warren has served Queen Elizabeth as her racing manager for many years, and so the queen has been a frequent guest in their home.  In fact, she had been there just a month or two before us.  When I went to sign their guest book, our names were placed on the page to the right of where the queen had signed.  She fills a whole page…our names took a mere line.  When no one was looking I had Meredith hold the book open so that I could quickly snap a photo of my name next to the queen of England…certainly the closest that I will ever get to her.

I have guest books in my homes as well.  But our tradition is for guests to write something personal about their stays. They become a treasure trove of memories, some of special friends no longer with us.  One of those is writer Walt Wangerin, who passed away in August of this year.  

Walt had been a professor of English at our university when Dave and I attended, though neither of us took one of his classes.  Just a scant four years after our graduations, Walt won the National Book Award for his fantasy novel, The Book of the Dun Cow.  Since then, he published about 40 books in many genres. Around thirty years ago my husband Dave and Walt were part of a group that founded the New Harmony Project for playwrights and screenwriters to have a safe and quiet place to develop their work. During that time, Dave and Walt became friends, and once we met Walt’s wife Thanne, the four of us made many visits to one another’s homes, including our cottage in Michigan.

In 2005 Walt was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  He was not expected to live for much more than a year, but he plunged into one creative project after another.  And we continued our visits.   The last time they came to spend a few days with us in Michigan was October, 2017. As I looked back through our guest book I found this funny and poignant entry that perfectly summed up how our conversations had proceeded despite his ravaged lungs:  “Cough, talk, eat, cough,” he wrote.  “Cough, talk, stories, theology, cough, cough, talk.”

For a more beautiful benediction on the life of Walt Wangerin, you can read Philip Yancey’s account at <christianitytoday.com>.   But for me these words in a guest book are the perfect benediction for an absent friend.

Love, Liz